Effects Of Upsized Wheels And Tires Tested (Car And Driver 2010)

[V28VX37]

Saw this mentioned on another forum, thought it was an interesting read:

Car and Driver: Effects of Upsized Wheels and Tires Tested

Plus-Size Models: Testing the performance effects of upsizing wheels and tires (April 2010)

They tested near-identical tyres on different wheel sizes in 15",16",17",18" and 19" on a 2010 Golf. Here's the summary graphic:

Obviously it's a fairly sedate front-wheel drive car but it's interesting that 17" and 18" seem to be in the sweet spot from a performance perspective. Going 19" resulted in slower acceleration, lateral grip, lower economy and more noise.

Edited January 19, 2013 by V28VX37

[ARTZ]

test is useless without 22s

Nah its kind of interesting but not really anything new to most of us...

I remember when top gear aus tested the walkinshaw VE...it was faster with 20s than it was on "up-spec"22s. that you pay extra for...everyone knows big wheels are a joke and used only in "Bling" applications or on "pimp my ride"..

i think V8 supercars are still running 17s but they look almost silly with 17s on the street..

[Duncan]

interesting how consistently the weight of the tyre/wheel goes up, I'm sure that's the issue with the big wheels

[Hank Scorpio]

Test is useless without using the same tread pattern on each tyre and the same type of wheel in each size (e.g TE37 etc.)

How can you compare a 16" steel wheel with a Pirelli P6 tyre against an 17" cast alloy with a Pirelli P7 tyre?

But yeah in general, the more unsprung weight, the worse the results. Pretty basic stuff.