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Author
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Topic: Larger tires in front on front wheel drive cars.
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PeterK
unregistered
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posted January 11, 2000 05:15 AM
 
What is the benefit/disadvantage?IP: Logged |
Kley
unregistered
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posted March 09, 2000 10:53 PM
Hi,
I wonder what do you mean by a larger; is a wider or larger diameter size. I usually stick to the recomended size as bigger size might compromise handling and put extra stress on suspention, wheel bearings, ball-joints, transmission, etc. Once some idiot put 185/75R13 instead 175/75R13 on my sister Civic, since the tires had larger diameter than originals, the car lacked accelaration and felt v.week. also handeled like **** . From experience if you try to put larger size tire eg. 185 instead of 175 the height/width ratio should smaller: 185/65 for original 175/70 to keep the diameter same. Wider tire will give some extra traction in dry weather but might compromize wet traction and especially snow traction (I ussually go two sizes smaller for snow tires; 155/80 for 175/70), so whatch if this is what you want.
My self I wouldn't go wider more than one size as it adds extra stress on the suspention parts (keep height/width ratio lower) because of the extra mass of the tire (lower mass changes directions, accelarates and stops faster). Other that it looks cool, I don't see any real advantage in the real world; buy a better tire for extra money that,s my advice.
IP: Logged |
Ray
unregistered
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posted March 10, 2000 07:58 AM
I don't think his question is what size of tire to use and the whole lecture of plus one sizing. The question if I read correctly is if rwd cars have wider tires in the rear (Porsche for example) because it increaes traction at the drive wheels and reduces oversteer wouldn't the same idea apply to fwd cars. All fwd cars I know of have equal size front and rear tires. I have also wondered about the same thing. Some people go to great lengths to increase front traction (reduce understeer) by stiffening front shocks, springs and anti-roll bars but nobody I know of thought of increase the width of their front tires. Example 225-50-16 in front and 205-55-16 in the back. This combo (in reverse order) is fairly common for rwd cars but why not fwd???IP: Logged | |
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