Don't these 15 inch rims originally fit another Mercedes chassis? Aren't there bunches of them destined for the junkyard? Being slightly rare and pricy, yards might take the time to better catalog and save rims from these cars. Also owners might have taken the time to garage and wash brake dust off their status symbols.
Who knows, the next new fad might be losing the donk look. LOTS of classic cars from the 70s and earlier rode around on non-metric size 14 inch 70-series tires that likely take very close to a 195. I think demand will stabilize, just supporting all those classics still running in California.
As you pointed out when you got aligned, your car needs a spring loaded thing to stretch the front end to account for the wheels slipping and stretching the toe somehow. If you got a much stickier tire, that might mess up the handling, for the worse.
Who knows, the next new fad might be losing the donk look. LOTS of classic cars from the 70s and earlier rode around on non-metric size 14 inch 70-series tires that likely take very close to a 195. I think demand will stabilize, just supporting all those classics still running in California.
As you pointed out when you got aligned, your car needs a spring loaded thing to stretch the front end to account for the wheels slipping and stretching the toe somehow. If you got a much stickier tire, that might mess up the handling, for the worse.