Saturn
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Saturn
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Probably the fastest way to change the appearance of your Saturn is to upgrade it's wheels and tires! There can however be some pitfalls when doing this.
When I purchased my 2000 SL2 I had already picked up these wheels and a set of Yokohama 205/45/16 high performance tires. This tire size is actually slightly smaller in diameter than the stock 185/65/15's and therefore throws the speedometer off. I've since bumped up the aspect ratio to 205/50/16's on these wheels and find the error on my speedometer to be a lot less. One headache I've had with these wheels is that I have to run spacers on the rears (not recommended as the concentric rings in your rims may not properly center the wheels) otherwise I can't get enough of a grip on the wheel nuts to torque them down safely. The threads protrude too far into the nuts for the special key to make proper contact.
Couldn't resist trying the new wheels and tires I picked up for our SL1 on my SL2. Problem is the tires are 215/40/16 so they are not the optimum diameter for this car. Note the missing front dust cap, that's because the spindle pops the flush ones out. I have a set of cone shaped caps coming up from the States and hopefully that will cure the problem. Happens on both the SL1 and SL2. A tire shop I went to claims that they cut off the end of the spindles when they run into this problem. Guess I'm not that adventuresome to want to try something like that.
The 215/40/16 tires are a close match diameter wise to the stock 175/70/14's that came stock on our SL1. But there is a catch, because the sidewalls are so short the tires don't absorb any bumps you hit on the road. Besides being a harder ride this could also mean damaged wheels if you hit a pothole at speed. I did that when I was running the 205/45/16's on my SL2. The wheel had to be repaired and so far is good and because I cracked the inside of the wheel you can't see where it was welded. The tread design can also make a big difference in terms of how noisy and how sticky your tires are. The tires in the photo are Kuhmo 712's and they stick well but are quite noisy. Maybe not a big deal on well insulated cars but on our SL1 it is quite loud. Still no pain no gain.....The rims btw are Primax and look great.
Thanks Primax! They were kind enough to send us replacement domed center caps which allowed the caps to clear the front spindles!
Finished, well ok still have the strut tower bar to install.
The original tires on aftermarket 15 inch CSA wheels don't look too shabby either.
From my limited seat of the pants observations I would recommend 50 series 16's if you want to bump up your wheel size slightly without getting into too hard a ride. Also the 205's aren't too wide that they cause problems with rubbing on the struts or other components in the wheel wells. On the SL1 with the 215's I notice performance has really taken a hit compared to the 185/70/14 Bridgestones we run on the factory steel wheels. Steering is a lot stiffer due to the added width of the tire and the tread pattern of the Kuhmo's seems to make the car hunt around a lot more. The stock Firestones aren't really terrible tires, they are a lot quieter than the UHP's and the Kuhmo's we have now. My original Yokohamas were pretty quiet compared to the the current wide tires we are running now. They also didn't hunt around the way the Kuhmo's do. The Ultra UHP's from Canadian Tire are ok, however I notice that I have a funny thump thump coming from one of the tires which sounds like a belt that has slipped. Considering I probably have under 10K on the tires that can't be a good sign and they will be going into the shop this week.
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