I've been behind the scenes reading this thread for a while. I thought I'd post my experiences. Lincoln Nav L Black Label. Like many, I was unsatisfied with the ride. I had once gotten rid of a 2014
Cadillac Escalade platinum prematurely because I hated the ride it was rough. 10 years later, I somehow ended up with a 2023 Navigator with a same rough ride. I'm smarter now, as I understand more about tires impact on ride, plus to realize that there's groups out there like this one. Surely, I wasn't the only one, and wasn't
Dave's starter to this thread was 3 months after I bought mine!
I went back and forth if I should bother doing what he did; the biggest question was quantifying the improvement for the hassle. Plus I was worried about altering the look of the wheel/vehicle, the reason I bought it. People would write after 20" that the ride was "better" but hard to understand what that meant. So I took the plunge and a month ago I purchased someone's take off 2023 Lincoln Navigator 20" wheels on ebay and replaced my 22's with them. It came with tires, but I then also later bought new tires than the ones that were on the takeoffs.
In the end, I think I ended up with about a 20% improvement. I would say about 10-15% of that improvement was from the 20" wheels, and the other 5% was after I bought "better" tires for it. I tried Michelins and others, but working with my tire shop owner, he told me to try his own truck, which had Hercules on them. It was better than the Michelin's for sure.
Regarding the look, it's obviously subjective. As most know, the 20" and 22" have the same diameter so there's no speedometer difference and the tire looks the same in the wheel well. I don't think the 20" OEM wheels are ugly. I did look for 20" wheels non-OEM, but they all looked cheap or "too bling" for a similar price. The 20" wheels don't look cheap, and a month later I don't really notice any of this issue anymore, even when I pull up on a Nav with 22" wheels.
20% improvement is not awesome. Again, I didn't know what to expect. If I had to explain it more, it gets rid of the harshness and sharpness (bottoming out?) of the bumps, which drove me the most nuts. My 2019 RAM 1500 with air suspension (and 22" wheels) has a better ride over the same bumps, but for what this vehicle is, it's now acceptable and lets me enjoy the vehicle without constantly thinking about it.
My significant other says that she thinks the Nav bobs up and down more once the 20" wheels got put on. This has been pointed out in car reviews of the Nav, but she wasn't aware of those -- she came up with this theory on her own. However, I never noticed the bobbing before. I know what she's saying, but it doesn't bother me, but that might matter to someone.
I'm still playing with tire pressure, and have been at 35ish that seems the best as others have pointed out for the 20" tire.
Ironically, while cost wasn't my driver, I'll probably make a profit on this whole adventure of buying 20" wheels and selling the 22" wheels, even after re-buying a second set of 20" tires.
Thanks to all the people who have posted and shared; this was a very informative and long-running thread. I'm sure there's plenty of lurkers like me, who learn and never post. But I thought I'd share my results and how it ended up for me.
Erik
