----- Original Message ----- From: "Winterlight" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "The Hardware List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 3:54 PM
Subject: Re: [H] Offtopic : Tire considerations
that I could notice. But on occasion, it has caused problems with handling, and reduced gas mileage, from dragging around a bigger tire.
Car manufactures have teams of engineers who design the car for specific tire size, for the best performance, handling, and value package.Then somebody come's along, and says, " Gee, I have a better idea, lets stick really big tires on it! :)
The value package part is a reason for a car manufacturer to not put the largest size tire on the vehicle that it would handle best with. Larger tires contain more materials so any addition to height or width could make the tire cost more.
I am not advocating installing special shocks that jack up a vehicle so you can install super large tires. In some instances a modestly larger tire will put more square inches of rubber on the ground. The main reason to upsize a tire is to put more square inches of rubber on the ground for better traction. Note that you interfere with the accuracy of your speedometer/odometer when you upsize the tires.
The vehicles that are best suited for a modest upsize in tires are pick-up trucks. Have you noticed that in recent years more vehicle manufacturers are installing larger tires on the larger chassis they engineer and build? The vehicles, especially pick-up truck and SUV's look more substantial. Hopefully they are catering to the people that want a heavy duty vehicle that will last. If so, they are not worried about the cheapskates and any vehicle manufacture that cater to them with less substantial chassis etc.
Hopefully most, if not all vehicles made nowadays have adequate size tires to provide the most traction. I do know that in the past you got skinny tires as standard equipment on pick-up trucks.
Chuck
