A tires and wheels question

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Mazda CX5 Touring with PEP
Looking at buying a 2017 Touring, that means 17" wheels. Did some on line shopping and found a combination of TSW wheels and Cooper tires for around $1100.

Are the stock tires low grade? I think they are Yoko Geolander. Any big advantage in stepping up in size to a 19" wheel? Does it do a lower stiffer sidewall? Obviously more expensive with the 19". Not too jazzed about the stock wheels that come with the car, that is why i'm looking in advance.
 
You'll no doubt get lots of negatives here about the Geolanders Mazda uses on the CX-5. I had them on my 2013 and IMO they're fine. They just don't last long (30k miles or so) because they have a low (280) UTQG (wear rating). Most replacement tires available have a wear rating about double that or more. Going from 17" to 19" tires (with a necessarily shorter/stiffer sidewall) will (theoretically) give you sharper turn-in for slightly better handling, but will possibly degrade the ride quality for the same (shorter/stiffer sidewall) reason. Life is full of trade-offs! BTW, the Cooper tire thing is a red flag for me. That's not generally the way people here go. I would do further research on TireRack.com and see what the top-rated tires for the CX-5 are.
 
Currently running a set of Coopers on my Xterra, pretty happy with them. Bought as a wheel/tire combination from Discount Tire Direct. The Coopers in question are C3($116 per) and the step up from them is the C5 ($123).

Once upon a time i spent hours pouring over reviews on Tire Rack. Filtering out what was pilot error and those that actually had a legit opinion, very subjective. The C5s are a recommended tire on TR.
 
It's not so much taking TR ratings as the holy grail, but they're a good starting point for x-referencing with other sources like CR, buff magazine tests, etc. If I'm going to be on these things for 60k miles, I don't mind putting in a little time up front to make a good choice.
 
I guess my point is, you can read reviews and watch video till the cows come home. Unless someone is paying you or you have unlimited amount of money to spend doing your own tests and butt dyno, buying tires is blind faith. The facts and figures are what you will have to rely upon and HOPE you make the right call. My last set of tires for my Mazda MX5 is a good example, bought Goodrich something or other that replaced a set of Yoko S drives. I loved the S drives but went on a reviewers recommendation that I wanted the Goodrich. A belt in the tire broke and the tire had 6K miles of thump thump. I could no longer take it and replaced with S drives about 2 weeks ago. Heaven.
 
Going to 19" has all the disadvantage of less tire availability, higher price tag, worse ride and etc. But bigger wheels usually looks a bit better. 20" will give you more tire selection at same/lower price than the 19". 18" will work well on this car too.
 
The Geolanders on my '16.5 T climb the logging road to my mountain property more easily with less fuss than the Toyos or Michelin Premier LTX on my '15 GT ever dreamed of doing it. They are not as noisy and the Toyos were. Their steering response is not as crisp; they are not as tossable. But they ride better and the ride and response of my Touring makes me think the suspension was tuned for the the 17" Geolanders, not the 19" Toyos.
 
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The Geolanders on my '16.5 T climb the logging road to my mountain property more easily with less fuss than the Toyos or Michelin Premier LTX ever dreamed of doing it. They are not as noisy and the Toyos were. Their steering response is not as crisp; they are not as tossable. But they ride better and the ride and response of my Touring makes me think the suspension was tuned for the the 17" Geolanders, not the 19" Toyos.

Hmmm....good point on the 17" tires. I was looking at prices, if i were to swap to 19" I'd be spending money just to spend money.
 
The Geolanders on our 2017 CX-5 are just fine. We have done 1500Km in sunshine, and rain and bad weather at around 130 Km/h speed and they seem to perform well. I would save the money for something else.
 
Followup to this thread. The stock tires are just fine for the vehicle. And the stock wheels look just fine with the MGP caliper covers give that splash of color behind the spokes. I'll hold off on doing anything for a while, possible plan is to get a set of summer tires later along with wheels and use the stocks for a set of winters.
 
Send your stock wheels to Detroit wheels and they chrome them wow, Look at the CX 9 chrome wheels to see how the chrome looks.
 
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