DogFacedGod
Legacy Member
Recent gelezen op een eigenlijk niet-auto site (economist.com)
Motoring | Getting a grip | The Economist
Weak-kneed looks aside, oversize wheels with low-profile tyres can present serious handling problems, especially on wet roads. The broader contact patch such tyres present to the road surface is a bonus in dry conditions, but induces a greater propensity to “aquaplane” in wet. Under such circumstances, the vehicle loses contact with the road altogether and careers out of control on a ridge of water.
That’s not all. There comes a point where the performance advantage of squatter tyres on larger wheels is outweighed by the disadvantages of greater inertia and heavier unsprung mass. These are not the sort of things you want messing up your vehicle’s dynamics when its only tenuous grip on the outside world comes from four tiny pads no bigger than the palm of a hand.
Depending on the driver’s inclination, going up one size in wheels (say, from 17-inch to 18-inch rims) and coming down in profile (from 50 to 45) to maintain the same rolling radius may be a worthwhile trade-off between ride and handling.
But going up to two sizes larger than the original wheels adds nothing in terms of handling, while worsening both the ride and the vehicle’s wet-weather behaviour
Motoring | Getting a grip | The Economist
Weak-kneed looks aside, oversize wheels with low-profile tyres can present serious handling problems, especially on wet roads. The broader contact patch such tyres present to the road surface is a bonus in dry conditions, but induces a greater propensity to “aquaplane” in wet. Under such circumstances, the vehicle loses contact with the road altogether and careers out of control on a ridge of water.
That’s not all. There comes a point where the performance advantage of squatter tyres on larger wheels is outweighed by the disadvantages of greater inertia and heavier unsprung mass. These are not the sort of things you want messing up your vehicle’s dynamics when its only tenuous grip on the outside world comes from four tiny pads no bigger than the palm of a hand.
Depending on the driver’s inclination, going up one size in wheels (say, from 17-inch to 18-inch rims) and coming down in profile (from 50 to 45) to maintain the same rolling radius may be a worthwhile trade-off between ride and handling.
But going up to two sizes larger than the original wheels adds nothing in terms of handling, while worsening both the ride and the vehicle’s wet-weather behaviour
