Improving ride on '05 Accord LX

4cyl 5M, used mostly for city driving and the roads are in poor
condition. If I gladly give up tread life and more grudginly give up a
bit in the performance areas, what's the best way to soften up the ride
a bit?

Shocks? Suspension changes? Spend big bux on tires without
hesitation?

Anyone ever try smaller wheel with taller sidewalls?

Of course, this would be after letting a couple psi out of the tires.

Thanks.

-- CL.

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Go buy some piece of Detroit junk with mushy suspension and bad
handling.

 

even though the other poster was appearing sarchastic hw/she is correct.
You need a big rear wheel drive american car if you want a nice cushy ride.

Your car already comes with substantial sidewalls and I doubt there is
anything you could do to decrease the performance of your suspension
components. With time it will get worse (or better for you) but not for a
while.

 

If this car was a Cadallac I wouldn't have wanted it. But if the
TireRack ratings are any guide, you can pick up nice gains in both
ride and noise comfort just by ditching the stock MXV4 S8s in favor
of any one of several other tires.

Not only that, if you can afford $87 a tire for a Goodyear Assurance
Tripletread, you can darned near peg the needle (9.4/9.5) in dry and
wet traction. That's over a 40 percent improvement in wet traction
and a 24 percent improvement in dry traction.

If handling is important, the same tire buys you an almost 40 percent
improvement in that category. And if you're frugal, at $44 per tire,
the Kumho ECSTA HP4 716 does nearly as well:

http://tinyurl.com/5yn6c

I appreciate your answering my question instead of just being a jerk
like the other responder. You never know if improvements in other
areas are possible unless you ask.



-- CL.

+-----------------------------------------+
| Charles Lasitter | Mailing / Shipping |
| 401/728-1987 | 14 Cooke St |
| cl+at+ncdm+dot+com | Pawtucket RI 02860 |
+-----------------------------------------+

 

tires don't have as much effect as the wheels. steelies have more
spring to them and ride smoother.

regarding shocks, there's not much cushier than stock for a honda. you
can try kyb agx's which are adjustable and have a "soft" setting, but in
my experience, they don't make a fundamentally sporty car like the honda
ride like a cadillac.

as mentioned by halo2 guy, the ride will soften up as the bushings
deteriorate, but that won't be for a while. after market bushings are
harder than stock, not softer.

 

Thanks for this insight, and the confirmation on the shocks.

So I've been spending a lot of hours reading tire scores on TireRack
(TR), where a lot of people do think the tire can influence a lot of
things.

I'd been considering switching to tires with a better score in the
ride and noise comfort areas, and maybe even upsizing the wheel /
tire combo to improve handling, wet and dry traction.

One guy at TR said they always figured about a 10% decrease in ride
comfort with every 1" increase wheel / tire size. What I don't know
is how much of a hit you take in fuel economy for going to something
like a 205/60-16 or a 215/50-17 versus the standard 205/65-15.

One problem with numbers from TR is that they are composites in
several different ways. If you look at the scores for an Avon 550
A/S, the numbers represent the tires scores across ALL sizes and for
ALL vehicles.

In most cases people are comparing same size tires on TR, but
sometimes people go to comparing the characteristics of a 15" tire to
that of a 17", without plainly explaining that they're doing it.

When you put in the data for your car, the reviews are "filtered" to
match the reviewer's vehicle, not what s/he ended up putting on there
after the original tires let go.

So one thing I'd love to know is reports from people about successful
experiences with wheels / tires for a 4Cyl '05 Accord LX. Guess I'll
need to google the group for any surveys!

-- CL.

+-----------------------------------------+
| Charles Lasitter | Mailing / Shipping |
| 401/728-1987 | 14 Cooke St |
| cl+at+ncdm+dot+com | Pawtucket RI 02860 |
+-----------------------------------------+

 

I just put Goodyear Assurance Comfortred tires on my 1997 accord.
With 140K miles, my car is so quiet all I hear is wind and engine
noise.
Living in detroit, my car rides like a dream over the torturing
potholes.
And remember the 94-97 accord doesnt have a rubber isolated subframe.
Of course it helped that I replaced my shocks with Sensatraks (40K
miles ago) and just replaced the badly deteriorated rubber mounts with
new oversized ones. Also the front strutt tower bar I added when the
car was new really stiffened up the chassis. With all of this, I am
amazed how nice my car rides and even handles, especially at 140K!
It baffles me that Honda, especially in 05 is still using that horrible
MXV4 tire from Michelin.