JustSo

OHHH that guy. lol lmao even.

Ugh I was watching an aussie farmer's youtube channel yesterday and, he's rightly pissed about certain legislation that limits the tools of his trade that only exist to basically win political points / shuffle the state of affairs around to look busy.

But to the extent he let himself rant about it he was referring to his state government as being "leftwing socialists" and I'm just like "bruh" they're neolibs, in bed with the corporations and to the extent they want to restrict his liberty it is to defang the ability of primary producers to influence any sort of political sway and protect the ruling class.

I hate how ignorant my people have grown. We were a country with a strong labor movement once. It was critical for us to attain the relatively high standard of living most of us enjoy. Now that party is just turbolibs.

You get a repair shop to do that usually.

But one which is very familiar with your car so you know they're doing it the efficient and correct way for your car.

Ahaha. Dame u got me.

I low key feel like an NAP violation is happening when my alarm goes off. Even more so if I'm already awake and my phone is in another room or lost in the house somewhere.

Also yeah get off that spare ASAP if it's a space saver wheel (aka a pizza cutter) those things are for getting you home and to a workshop, not for daily use.

I'll try to find a chevrolet cruze enthusiast I guess. They apparently exist on a cursory search.

Haha yeah there's a type of sicko for almost everything on the road.

Is it a terrible idea to buy 'new wheels' in general?

That's such a complex question. If you mean like, in your case, finding a brand new thing to put on the car to replace what you've got, you could look at plain jane steel wheels- over here we call them "steelies" and they are quite affordable. They will probably be heavier than what you have on there now, so that's going to effect fuel economy a little bit and make the car work a little bit harder, but since you've got the performance pack and presumably an engine tuned to be abused a bit, it will handle it.

A nice benefit of steel wheels (I'm just assuming you have alloy wheels) is if you hit a pothole your wheel will bend, not break, and the wheel can be repaired rather than replaced in future. And another nice benefit is they are generally very cheap compared to aftermarket alloy wheels. There are usually local manufacturers making them still, I believe. If you can find a place that sells them and it's within budget and looks reasonable compared to whatever you see on the second hand market (ie cheaper) then that business will be able to sell you wheels that will fit your car, matching the base model specs etc.

I'm a bit worried that there's a chance because you got a sportier package that it might have bigger brakes than the cheaper versions. You'd have to research to be sure, but this can be a clearance issue. Still your mechanic suggested the swap so I assume he can see that the brake discs and calipers are not HUEG beasts of things intended for track days and stuff. It's something you could consider asking the mechanic about.

We often like steelies for beater cars even on the track since they're cheap, you can fuck them up and then just roll the dents out and keep going with minimal hassle. It's not pretty but it does the job even if it's not the optimal choice in a performance sense. It's the fancy wheels that are often the most vulnerable to failing in a way that can't be repaired.

I'm a car guy. I know, car bad etc. But I sorta "get it" or whatever.

But yeah I know. If you're not in it for the love of the game there is zero benefit to doing anything that isn't the most economical option. Except getting good tyres, those are really worth not cheaping out on from a safety perspective.

Edit: Don't become a car guy, yall. It's a dead end hobby and a money and time sink. If you're just curious or whatever, stop. Get a better hobby. This is biased advice and I know there will always be people like me who love working on the things and feel empowered swinging spanners and nerding out tweaking things. But yeah, keep em bone stock, get the economy shit, just use the tool for the job and enjoy the rest of your life not worrying about your precious planet destroying machine.

yeah this is a good point. for a normal every day car you really do want to just try and replicate the same overall rolling diameter as close as possible so you don't have to worry too much about it.

I have found just using the speedo on a GPS to be more reliable and accurate than even all OEM / factory installed everything. Though, if you do a lot of dense city commuting this might not be practical.

Edit: also, maintaining that same overall tyre diameter by increasing the sidewall will generally lead to a more comfortable ride than 18s on low profile tyres. The trend towards big wheels with sporty looking tyres is a pretty crap design choice that puts aesthetics and fashion over practicality.

Evidently we stay thinking about them. It's getting harder and harder to ignore. :(

This is the kind of guy who "spontaneously combusts" but actually it's just his ecig battery blew up and he went off like an oil fire.

I'll tell ya what not to buy- 15" discontinued JDM wheels 10.5" wide. lol. fucking nightmare.

Your mechanic's advice sounds reasonable to me, you just want to make sure the bolt pattern is the same, and that the width and offset of the wheels is the same or very similar to what your car came with. I don't think there's a current risk of 16 or 17 inch tyres becoming hard to source unlike smaller wheels. Basically getting wheels from the same manufacturer (ie grab some OEM wheels that someone else is getting rid of because they're putting fancy wheels on) in the same model of vehicle but a bit older, is usually a good bet. You attempt to find them cheap on the second hand market or a car wrecker.

Enthusiast forums or communities on facebook specific to your car are the most straight forward way to get good advice specific to your car and also to potentially find reasonable deals from people who just want to get rid of their old wheels because they take up space.

In the ideal scenario you have a mechanic you can trust who is honest and will not gouge you on sourcing parts. If you let them on-sell your 18s it might keep the cost down. Idk dealing with mechanics is very vibes based in my experience until you've been with them long enough to know they are legit.

Again though, enthusiasts for your make and model can be encyclopedias of knowledge and they tend to be open to providing good advice.