Does Size Matter?, a wheel question Options

[PORobinSCHE]

hello all, i want to get new wheels for my project. is there an advantage going to a 16 or 17 inch wheel,versus a stock 15"?

thanks

Robin

[Dave_Darling]

A few points--

1: You can put tires with short side-walls on smaller diameter rims. There's nothing preventing you from doing that but the annoyance factor of running higher RPMs on the freeway. I ran 195/50-15s for quite a few years on my car, and those have short sidewalls. (And Clay's wife Betty's car had 195/45s or /40s for a while!)

2: Tires with taller sidewalls tend to weigh more than tires with shorter sidewalls. IF you keep the overall diameter the same, the weight distribution of the wheel/tire combo may actually be a little more central with a larger wheel and shorter tire. I have seen some research that supports this notion (someone I know weighed a few tires and wheels and did some back-of-a-napkin number crunching) but nothing definitive....


The two biggest factors, to me: The larger rim sizes have a greater variety of decent rubber to choose from; and they leave you more room for big brakes if you need those. And lots of people like the look, of course.

--DD