Wide tires the great conspiracy.

[tjts1]

And just for fun, R8 conspiracy edition.

Ok, so our's wasn't a gordini but it did have a 1300 swap in its later years.

[Bill in Houston]

Wide tires are nice for traction and possibly ride, bad for FE.

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by Bill in Houston

Wide tires are nice for traction and possibly ride, bad for FE.

...exactly.

• Analogy #1: Q - How many marathon runners do you see running in a pair of huge, floppy, 'Ronald McDonald™' shoes? A - none!

• Analogy #2: Q - How many marathon bicyclists do you see driving on wide, low-pressure, knobbed, tires instead of on narrow, high-pressure, thin-tread tires? A - none!

[dcb]

And wide tires are not all that good for on-road traction.

If you have ever ridden a 10 speed AND a mountain bike through the slush you will know exactly what I am talking about. The skinny 10 speed tire cuts through the slush and on to the pavement, displacing only enough material to reach the road surface, leaving the rest of your weight for traction. The wider tires do not penetrate as well, and you are sliding around on the surface of the slush.

If a narrow tire and wide tire have the same tread pattern then the narrow one will still resist hydroplaning better.

Where wider tires help is in racecars where you are targeting several Gs and expect to change to new tires regularly despite spreading the loads across the wider width.

Wider tires also help when there are significant chunks of road missing, so that some part of your tire is more likely to be in contact with the road even if half the tire is over a pothole, or in off-road situations where your forward thrust is part newtonian

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...exactly.

• Analogy #1: Q - How many marathon runners do you see running in a pair of huge, floppy, 'Ronald McDonald™' shoes? A - none!

• Analogy #2: Q - How many marathon bicyclists do you see driving on wide, low-pressure, knobbed, tires instead of on narrow, high-pressure, thin-tread tires? A - none!

Neither of those "analogies" are analogous to tire width.

I think if there is any conspiracy at all, it is in the ridiculously pressures commonly specified. Width doesn't seem to be a big deal unless one goes to extremes.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

True. Wider tires give better handling and cornering capability. That makes the car safer if it responds better in avoiding a collision. (I would expect that those who are primarily concerned with or obsessed with fuel economy will be dismissive of that aspect. If you call wide tires a "conspiracy" that shows a certain bias.)

My replacement car has 195s whereas my own car has 205s - all LRR tyres.
There's not that much difference in driving quality between them.

[cfg83]

diesel_john -

I can't figure out what to vote yet. I am leaning towards "Ok". Aesthetically I think the larger proportion tires can make a car look better, aka Hot Wheels. But whenever I see the price of owning wide tires I balk. I'll go for cheap vanity gizmos here and there, but I can't ju$tify wide tire vanity, and they sure don't help from an Ecomodder standpoint.

CarloSW2

[TheEnemy]

Originally Posted by dcb

And wide tires are not all that good for on-road traction.

If you have ever ridden a 10 speed AND a mountain bike through the slush you will know exactly what I am talking about. The skinny 10 speed tire cuts through the slush and on to the pavement, displacing only enough material to reach the road surface, leaving the rest of your weight for traction. The wider tires do not penetrate as well, and you are sliding around on the surface of the slush.


If a narrow tire and wide tire have the same tread pattern then the narrow one will still resist hydroplaning better.

Where wider tires help is in racecars where you are targeting several Gs and expect to change to new tires regularly despite spreading the loads across the wider width.

The big difference between skinny/wide bicycle tires, is that different sized car tires inflate to the same pressure whereas the different sized bicycle tires can vary by 60+psi.

Wider tires also help when there are significant chunks of road missing, so that some part of your tire is more likely to be in contact with the road even if half the tire is over a pothole, or in off-road situations where your forward thrust is part newtonian

I hope you are not using newtonian on any of my trails. You might get a lecture about not tearing up the trails for the next guy. (ok so we don't have much in the way of mud) The most impressive run I saw as a little truggy with a 4cyl engine and lots of gearing putter up a waterfall without hardly slipping at all.

As far as wider/skinnier tires, I think it depends a lot on car weight, my wifes 05 Accord bulges the front tires even at max sidewall, and we went wider when we changed them. My truck tires now stay round even when I have a heavy load in the back. Unloaded they will stay round down to 25psi.

So all in all my answer is it depends on the vehicle, weight, typical driving conditions... etc as to weather wider is better or not.

[diesel_john]

Originally Posted by cfg83

diesel_john -

I can't figure out what to vote yet. I am leaning towards "Ok". Aesthetically I think the larger proportion tires can make a car look better, aka Hot Wheels. But whenever I see the price of owning wide tires I balk. I'll go for cheap vanity gizmos here and there, but I can't ju$tify wide tire vanity, and they sure don't help from an Ecomodder standpoint.

CarloSW2

I will admit that the choices I gave for the survey are pretty lame. And probably violated every rule in surveyology. I am just tic'd that 13" tires are being phased out.
diesel_john

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by diesel_john

I will admit that the choices I gave for the survey are pretty lame. And probably violated every rule in surveyology. I am just tic'd that 13" tires are being phased out.
diesel_john

OOOOOOooooooo! That's a BIG tire conspiracy, not a wide tire conspiracy! Why didn't you say so?