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brucepick · 03-09-2008, 12:02 PM

Please confirm or correct me on this -
Weight of wheels + tires has an affects acceleration and affects mpg when accelerating, but has a nearly insignificant effect on steady-speed driving?

For steady-state driving, reducing the combined weight of all wheels by 20 lb. would be the same as removing 20 lb. of unneeded cargo from the car?

But for accelerating/decelerating reducing that weight would have a more significant result?

I ask because yesterday I weighed the 2 different wheel/tire combinations I have on hand. Nice 205/65-15's turned out to be 4.5 to 5 lb heavier (each!) than 195/75-14's, both mounted on oem steelies. The two have nearly identical outer diameters and so are swappable without affecting speedometer/odometer accuracy or effective gear ratios.

03-09-2008, 12:02 PM	#1 (permalink)
brucepick Hypermiler Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Eastern CT, USA Posts: 1,070 Lean Burn Civic - '97 Civic HX Team Honda 90 day: 51.92 mpg (US) Thanks: 78 Thanked 87 Times in 63 Posts	Effect of weight of wheel+tire Please confirm or correct me on this - Weight of wheels + tires has an affects acceleration and affects mpg when accelerating, but has a nearly insignificant effect on steady-speed driving? For steady-state driving, reducing the combined weight of all wheels by 20 lb. would be the same as removing 20 lb. of unneeded cargo from the car? But for accelerating/decelerating reducing that weight would have a more significant result? I ask because yesterday I weighed the 2 different wheel/tire combinations I have on hand. Nice 205/65-15's turned out to be 4.5 to 5 lb heavier (each!) than 195/75-14's, both mounted on oem steelies. The two have nearly identical outer diameters and so are swappable without affecting speedometer/odometer accuracy or effective gear ratios. (Support Ecomodder.com & get rid of these annoying ads!) __________________ Check your tire pressure - keep it up !! We've learned that diet has a closer relationship to cancer than we ever thought. Please see this Wikipedia article on The China Study. Driving Lean Burn '97 Civic HX, lotsa mods by now! '89 Volvo 240 is semi-retired. I did love that car though!