Quote:
Originally Posted by mans
Hi guys,
while driving on the street I see the car in front of me with a doughnut on his rear wheel.
I can't help but notice how narrow the doughnut spare tire is, it looks like 1/2 the width of the normal tire.
At the minimized ground contact + the higher pressure of doughnut tires I thought to myself there should be way less rolling resistance if you were driving on 4 of these... tho you'd need to find ones that have the same outside diameter of your full size tires so you don't decrease your engine rev's.
|
I had the same thought when I got a flat and had to put the doughnut on my rear wheel.
I guess great ecomodders think alike!
However, I also noticed that having that one spare tire on resulted in some slipping around turns and I think the anti-lock even kicked in once during braking, all on dry ground. And that was only driving 1 city block at less than 30mph to the tire store.
It sounds like a good idea, but I don't think that it's worth compromising traction and safety when the gains probably aren't going to be much more than you would get with a good set of LRR tires of the same size as you have now. Remember that the doughnuts are only rated for 50mph MAX speed.
My opinion is to spend that $400-some dollars on a good set of LRR tires. That way you still have traction and braking when you need it AND decreased rolling resistance. My guess is that doughnuts probably wouldn't get you much better economy that LRR tires.