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Many modern cars, especially premium brands, are designed with vast wheel arches which only hide their proportions when rims of 18" and up are fitted.
It's deliberate of course, as it makes the buyer stump up for wheel upgrades. Rather suffer the physical discomfort of the road surface than the aesthetic discomfort of 16" wheels. The BMW 3-series is the perfect example - 16" wheels on a 320d screams 'poverty spec' - the last message any BMW driver wants to project.
Also, more basically, cars are simply getting bigger and bigger anyway, so their wheels are too.
Edited by Sulphur Man on 28/04/2014 at 15:23
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Also, more basically, cars are simply getting bigger and bigger anyway, so their wheels are too.
Just because cars are getting bigger does not mean they need bigger wheels.
Back in the 60's dad had a Vauxhall Cresta. In its day it was as big as "normal" cars got, felt huge next to a Cortina or Hillman Hunter. 3.3 litre strait 6 and 4.7 meters long (which is actually shorter than a Mondeo today). Would do just over 100 mph, 0-60 eventually and 20 mpg. But the car managed quite well on 14" wheels shod with 5.9 x 14 x-ply tyres. It also had a shocking wallowy ride that was enough to make anyone sick.
A Mondeo would work well enough on 14" wheels today (with the correct spec tyres) but the brakes would be small and they would take some getting used to visually.
Bring back the good old days
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I saw an E-reg BMW recently - 15 inch wheels. Looked fine to me!
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The trend seems to be towards bigger and uglier alloys on cars. Now some large diameter wheels with ultra low-profile tyres put me in mind of the cast-iron spoked wheels fitted to early lorries and buses in the days of solid tyres!
In America you can even get super-huge 30 inch plus alloy wheels to put on your car.
www.autoevolution.com/news-image/pearl-blue-audi-q...l
Where will it all end? Will the wheel turn full circle?
autoworld.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/hummer-h3-wi...g
Edited by Sofa Spud on 28/04/2014 at 18:45
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Don't you hate it when folks call them rims too. They are wheels.
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I rent cars overseas several times a year and the cars are always near to the bottom of the range with much higher profile tyres than we would get in the UK. The ride difference is frequently immediately obvious. We bought a Juke based upon a week's rental. The rental had 16" and our car has 17". The 17" has a less supple ride, especially over road humps.
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On the other hand we rented a gutless new Focus in Ireland (Shannon), sitting on some ridiculous wheels about 5 years ago.
I don't think we've recovered yet, i wouldn't have a Focus as a gift (nor any Ford of the last 15 years come to that), sporty handling, yeah right but for goodness sake keep you teeth frimly gripped together if you don't want shattered teeth.
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Wow, flat earth society thread. GB have you driven all modern Fords or maybe your experience had more to do with Ireland's notoriously awful roads. As for e handbrakes, genius, better packaging, being with them hill start assist. I'm sure you'd have been equally dismissive of new fangled electric starters....
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Wow, flat earth society thread. GB have you driven all modern Fords or maybe your experience had more to do with Ireland's notoriously awful roads. As for e handbrakes, genius, better packaging, being with them hill start assist. I'm sure you'd have been equally dismissive of new fangled electric starters....
Well, up until just over 4 years ago i'd driven just about every new car model made over the previous 20 odd years due to my previous work, but thanks for injecting some humour.
Some people want every electronic goody going, good luck to them.
Some people can't actually drive, so need things like hill start, good luck to them too.
Some people couldn't change a flat tyre to save their lives, so claim its too dangerous, hence want runflats or a can of goo and a toy pump in place of a real spare wheel, again good luck to them.
So long as those people who want all these things realise that there are an awful lot of us out there who don't buy new cars for a variety of reasons...me cos i'm too tight and would cry at the depreciation and i dislike the overwhelming majority of modern cars anyway....anyway so long as buyers of the latest designs stuffed with electronics realise that a hell of a lot of us wouldn't consider their fully loaded used car if it was free so will be keeping our old chod or buying the simplest possible used, again good luck to them.
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Don't you hate it when folks call them rims too.
Did you know you can get rim wax for wheels. Sounds like something you get from the pharmacist.
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The metal bit is larger in diameter , the rubbery bits are less deep, but the rolling radius has to be exactly the same. So 18" wheels only look "better". They don't filll the wheel arches more than the originals, or the overall gear ratio would be altered. At least, that is how I understand things?
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If you are choosing a wheel/tyre ratio on looks alone, which I think is daft anyway, I prefer bigger tyres and smaller wheels. The roads where I live are total disasters too, which would wreck "sporty" wheels in one day. I've just come back from Holland which feels a superior country to the UK in many ways, but their roads are especially good. I don't think I saw one pothole! Incredible.
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Slightly off topic, but I for one would try to avoid alloy wheels with machined or "diamond turned" faces.
The lacquer finish invariably suffers from thinning at the edges, giving you scruffy corroded wheels after one winter.
Look bling in the showroom though ………………
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Some guy posted on here a couple of weeks back about how his new rinky-dink S-line Audi was tramlining etc and he put it down to the 19 or 20 inch wheels, and he was seeking to change them (or the tyre width/profile combination) for something like his last Audi which didn’t suffer these woes and had had less ‘macho’ wheels/tyres on it.
Can any end-users swear that, apart from appearance, there are ANY actual benefits of these overly large wheels and rubber band tyres? The wheels and tyres cost a fortune if they get damaged (to which they are MORE vulnerable), the tyres cost a fortune when they inevitably wear out, their ride comfort is usually worse, their road noise is usually worse. And if you design a supermini to accommodate 15 or 16 inch wheels, then the wheelarches are robbing passenger and luggage space.
Yes big wheels can accommodate bigger brake discs and calipers, but are those really necessary? My 208 BHP Subaru came with 15” wheels, and stopped okay. My 136 BHP Mondeo estate had 14” wheels and handled and stopped okay.
Because I recall one of the math-guru forum-members in the past demonstrating that the actual area of the footprint of a tyre was solely dependent on the weight of the vehicle and the air pressure inside the tyre. So a bigger wheel and wider tyre changed the shape of the contact patch but didn’t actually increase the area of it. So a wider, lower-profile tyre could offer a more responsive, snappier turn-in, but not actually much more GRIP. And if the mechanical grip between tyre and road is barely any better, how exactly do bigger discs and calipers actually generate better braking (apart from less fade) ?
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Ever looked at a Formula 1 car. They use 13" wheels but the tyres fitted have huge sidewalls. They appear to corner OK.
Over the last 20 years or so I have run my classic on 13" wheels with 185/70 13 tyres, 13" wheels with 185/60 13 tyres, 14" wheels with 185/60 14 tyres and 15" wheels with 195/ 15 tyres. The 13" 70 profile combination probably gave the best ride (but the large sidewalls did seem unstable at times) and the 15" combination with Bridgestone tyres gave the worst ride. 15" Marangoni tyres actually gave an excellent ride/handling compromise but they wore out very fast. On the track the 13" with 60 profile tyres gave the best handling probably because the weight was less and it allowed the suspension to work better.
But for the last 10 years I have used the 14" wheels with 60 profile tyres. They give a bit more ground clearance than the 13" wheels with 60 profile tyres and they also make the gearing a little longer. Ride is fine as is the handling, not twitchy or wallowy. In my experience they are the best compromise.
Trouble is tyres in a 13" and 14" size are getting increasingly difficult to find in quality brands. May end up going to 15" again next time.
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It's the suspension setup, not the tyres. My wife's Corsa (pretty basic spec) has 185/70 R14. Not a low proifle thingy, if you ask me. And? Well, it barely makes it. It's just stiff and that's that. Now, my sister's Chevrolet Aveo (again pretty basic spec) with 195/55 R15, that's a different story. Nice, soft, wallowy suspension, much much much more comfortable that the Corsa's. Lower profile, but different setup, and that's the answer.
Or a Merc, E-class, model year 2005 or 2006, I guess with 225/55 R16. Again, much more comfy than a BMW 5 (previous model, so similar model year).
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