So much wrong in this article, but some things are correct. First a smaller rim and higher profile tire wouldn't have prevented the problem. Whatever was hit was hard enough to knock a dime-sized hole in his tire. That's almost three quarters of an inch or 18 mm for the rest of the world. This isn't some light scrubbing on the sidewall or damaging your rim from a curb scrape. This is full on you blasted into something and poked a god-awful-sized hole into the side of your tire. No profile is going to save you from that.
Second the trend of using these wheels and tire combinations is partially because consumers want that look but primarily for stability of these obnoxiously sized chassis to body ratio that people want in vehicles. Partially due to emissions standards and partially due to ride comfort manufacturers are using car chassis and bolting on effectively high profile truck bodies to them (that's your typical crossover). You put on a 14-in rim with a 75% sidewall tire you have a handling nightmare that will result in rollovers. Sticking a large rim with a small profile tire greatly reduces that.
Lastly, yes larger rims are heavier and result in more unsprung weight but the trade-off is (for a factory setup) always worth it for increased handling and stability. This can reduce ride comfort but since you're on a car chassis anyway the suspension is making up the difference for what the tires used to do back in the '80s and '70s and '60s.
This author seriously needs to go find a bone stock car from the mid-70s or even the late 60s and compare it to what he has today. I give this your range because bias tires are just garbage and by the late 60s most manufacturers had started installing radials at that point. Still cars were given high profile tires. A sports car would not be uncommon to have a 225 65 R15 tire. Total mush with atrocious handling. Still if you're going to smack curbs enough to put dime-size holes in it the only thing it might save is scratching up your steel rim which was also god awful heavy compared to modern alloy rims that are bigger.
If you want smaller wheels and tires you need to go with smaller overall vehicles. Manufacturers don't do this for looks as their primary reason. They do it because it's what's required to keep the car safe and stable and meet the safety standards that are mandated. Nobody wants smaller cars because the safety rating goes through the floor because smaller cars you can only make them so safe due to the weight constraints of having a smaller car.
Consumer Reports, which presumably has test driven a wider array of cars than you or me, is pretty much constantly complaining about how the trend toward larger wheels is compromising ride quality. (In particular, when discussing trim levels they often count the larger rims you get with higher trim levels as a negative.)
Given that the weight and size of vehicles has constantly been increasing (largely due to the auto co's "nice family you got, pity if something ... happened to it" marketing campaigns) some increase in size would make sense from a perf standpoint. I think the author's argument is that it's gone far beyond that. And CU, at least, seems to agree.
Agreed, if you're picking the ultra sport option tires for your grocery getter then your ride will suffer, but that's not what I'm referring too. If a customer chooses that, they get what they asked for and shouldn't complain.
Stock tires now days a have a lower profile from the past, and when choosing the normal wheel and tire option the ride quality will be better than the cars from days gone by. Tires for cars used to have very large sidewall ratios, 15 inch rim and 75% was common for a passenger sedan. That was a marshmallow with bad road feel and coupled with the soggy suspension setups the cars would be considered dangerous by modern standards. The 17" 50% tires that are common today provide much better handling and the unsprung weight is likely less than the past. All of this makes a better and safer car.
One thing people always forget when talking tire sidewalls is that larger side wall generates more heat in a tire and can promote failure. All that sidewall flex makes heat every time it rolls around. Small rims and big sidewalls, shorten tire life and not in the way of a curb hit like the author had. It shortens it in a way of highway speed delamination which is never fun. (From personal experience). The Ford bronco rollovers had this catastrophic blowout issue as the trigger that exposed poor suspension.
50R17 wheels would be fine if that was what cars actually had. Instead the fitments are like 40R19 and 45R20. The trend of bigger wheels and smaller sidewalls is not going away either. 19s and 20s are giving way to 21s and 22s.
Around 5-6 years ago we passed better grip and handling and moved well into harsh ride, bent wheels, and higher unsprung mass territory.
I’m convinced one the the major factors driving the SUV revolution along with high driving position and CAFE light truck regs is higher aspect ratio tires compared with the equivalent sedan or wagon. The SUV has huge wheels but also has higher aspect tires, so you still get some sidewall flex and acceptable ride. The sedan equivalent has rubber band tires that crash on even reasonably maintained pavement (a bar many cities cannot reach), so of course the better ride wins even if the vehicle is far heavier and more expensive.
That's all well and good, but you can't tell me that I need 20" wheels on my Ioniq 5 instead of 19"s just because I got the glass roof. I'd rather have the 10 extra miles of range with the 19"s.
OTOH, everyone who sees the car, almost to a person, comments on how much they like the wheels.
The glass roof does add a bit of weight at the top of the car, so it may make the car a bit less stable, so maybe that would be an argument for bigger wheels?
That's a reasonable guess, but the glass roof is an abstraction of "top-level trim". And that top-level trim comes with top-level wheels. I'd be shocked if the 20s are a result of engineering and not pricing tiers.
I agree with you, trim levels piss me off as well.
You want an electric hatch? Then you also need to buy a bunch of stuff you don't need and they'll stick chrome bits everywhere on your car. Don't want the chrome? Sorry not possible.
Low profile tires are stiffer and should therefore be damaged more easily.
There's no way to tell from the story how the accident happened, but I wouldn't rule out that a more flexible tire would have just deformed instead of tearing.
The rubber band tires are almost entirely for show. A 2024 Camry weighs in around 3,300 lbs and comes stock with 205/65-16 tires. A 1998 BMW 528i comes in somewhere north of 3,500 lbs and came stock with 225/60-15 tires that have a taller sidewall than the Camry. You'd be hard pressed to convince me that the Camry rides and handles better.
Nobody wants smaller cars because the safety rating goes through the floor
A 2023 Corolla and 2000 3-series are roughly the same weight. Both got "good" ratings from the IIHS across all the tests.
Let's do the math because I'm not sure you understand how tire side wall height works. The Camry, 205 * .65 = 133.25. The BMW 225 * .60 = 135. So your BMW has a whole 1.75 mm more sidewall. Yes I'm absolutely positive that slight amount of sidewall made no difference between these 2 and it came down to the suspension engineering of the car.
Neither of these are low profile tires and both are sedans and not crossovers that have a high center of gravity.
Also a while Corolla is classified as a compact car it's curb weight is 3000lbs. This is heavy car, largely due to mandatory safety things. While that's all we'll and and good, heavier car requires better suspension and tires than a lighter car. Which is why you see 18" and 40 profile tires are every version except the hybrid.
Now if we compare it to a compact of the past like the humble Ford pinto. It weighs in at a feather weight of 2000-2200lbs depending on the version. Massive weight difference from an modern compact. As vehicle weigh goes up other things must change too.
I think my point about smaller cars was lost. It was meant to mean that in most first world countries we can no longer get actual smaller cars. The safety rules that we want in place for our vehicles preclude them from being sold here.
The Camry is running on 16" wheels while the E39 is running on 15s with that sidewall height. This trend towards massive wheels is almost entirely about style and has little-to-no engineering merit. If you step out of the 70s and early 80s we had cars that rode and handled well while not needing low profile tires.
The fact that the Camry can provide "modern" levels of driving dynamics on tires that aren't super low profile supports this. Even so there's no engineering reason Toyota couldn't offer a 15" wheel option. It's all about style over substance.
Cars vs SUVs/crossovers is a red herring as all vehicles (in the states at least) have been getting larger and larger wheels. SUVs that offered car-like driving dynamics only came out as the trend towards larger wheels took off. It'd be perfectly reasonable to sell such a vehicle with smaller wheels but it probably wouldn't sell well as people have been conditioned to think it looks weird.
I have a big modern German SUV that came with 20” wheels… going down to 17 massively improved ride quality and offroad ability without hurting stability or handling significantly. There are some reasons why we don’t want to go back to 60s wheel sizes, but they still should be a lot smaller than they are now.
There's truth in what you're saying, but it's not the entire truth. Same model cars over 20 years have hugely grown in wheel and tire sizes. We can say that maybe golf gti is larger now than it used to be so that compensates a little but e. G. Subaru wrx really isn't meaningfully larger and it went from 15-16 inch to 18-19inch.
It seems like the article should have been "Can we please go back to having spare tires in cars?" Shit happens. But these days half the cars available don't include spares or a place to put them.
? I didn’t know not having a spare tire was even a thing. I’ve had flat tires twice and got back on the road in under 20 minutes after changing the tire. I’m glad I now know this is a thing, so I can research new cars for this and avoid any model that has no spare.
I think the problem is that tires are getting so big there's no place to store the spare. Especially on EVs where you need all the space you can get for the battery.
That being said all the cars I looked at when I bought my car had a spare tire as an option (by default you wouldn't get one)
I own a 2010 Camaro SS and it doesn't have a spare. Part of that because those tires are HUGE -- I doubt I could fit one into my trunk -- but also because the front and rear tires are of different sizes. Which size should you carry?
Chevy also put my battery in the trunk for weight distribution reasons, which makes the available space there even less. Maybe they felt they could do that because there was no spare.
I love my Camaro but it is definitely a "pay to play" vehicle.
If you don’t have a full size spare, you generally always want to put it on the back. (Even if it means swapping tires around if you blew out a front tire.) You don’t want to compromise steering by putting it on the front wheel.
FWIW lift the liner in the trunk and there's space for a donut. They have it replaced with an air compressor, a fix a flat can and a giant block of compressed foam in the shape of a tire lol.
It's become relatively common over the last few years. Especially with EVs (probably a mix of cost reduction, weight reduction, and packaging problems). There's barely any EVs that come with spares (Rivian, F-150, that might be it). Some EVs based in ICE platforms like the Hyundai Kona have a place to put it at least, or you can get aftermarket ones that live in the back seat/trunk
The first car I ever bought new, a 2012 Hyundai Accent, didn't come with one. It was a comparatively cheap car, but it wasn't the cheapest package. A friend's Volvo sedan (approx. same model year) also didn't come with one. My newer Volkswagen did come with a donut, so I've definitely experienced both.
Edit: none of these were hybrids or EVs, so it's not just batteries.
Most cars we've seen in Canada last decade did not have one. My 2004 wrx (yes 20yo) has one. Anything from Honda odyssey to Subaru cross trek to hyundai and Kias did not seem to have one.
One of my previous cars came with no spare but “run flat” tires (might be named something else). Basically they have strong sidewalls that do not collapse even without pressure. You can ride on them at much slower speeds to get to a tire shop. Loved those.
My later cars both had no spares neither an emergency solution like the previous one had. I used a foam tire sealer once, worked wonders on a small puncture.
Couple weeks ago I managed to completely fuck up a tire on my volvo with no spare. Had to call assistance number, they sent a tow truck.. Spent half a day sorting it out.
People equip cars with huge wheels for the same reason homeowners plant large swaths of grass over highly productive land: the aristocratic image of being able to afford to waste and being above the peasantry.
Donks are a clear cut example of this within that subculture.
Within reason, larger wheels and slimmer tires do more for the car aesthetically. Look at any concept sketch from an automotive designer and you will find impracticably big wheels on the design.
The upcoming Cadillac Escalade IQ is going to have an optional 24" wheel fitment. With the 50mm sidewall, this makes the total outside diameter of the tire 35". That's the same tire diameter as you'd put on a rock crawling Jeep Wrangler to take to Moab, but it's instead on a (estimated) 8500lb (3855kg) full-size luxury crossover marketed as an "executive" vehicle.
For comparison, the Hummer H1's tire outer diameter was 37". We're quite nearly to that level of insanity.
I'd reckon just a tire is going to weigh nearly 50lbs (22.6kg), with the wheel about the same. I can't imagine how "fun" changing a 100lb wheel+tire is going to be when rotating tires. Moreover, the reality is the cost of the those tires will be comparable to near R-compound top-end performance car tires. Never having personally considered tires/wheels that weighed anywhere near this, I wonder what the point was when shops had to get entirely new wheel balancing machines, etc. to adequately accommodate these ever larger sizes and weights.
The battery impact for an EV is also going to be substantial, as is the impact to braking performance. It's really just maddening.
Yes. The sidewall only accounts for a specific section of the side of the tire. You're excluding the portion which has to mate with the outer diameter of the barrel of wheel, as well as the entire outer tread. There's a LOT of material there in those two parts that aren't, "sidewall", nor accounted for in the size code.
For example, I have 35mm sidewall sports car tires on 20" (only wheel offered by the manufacturer) diameter wheels. That would be less than 23" if we calculated as you did. The actual total diameter of an inflated tire though is ~27" (26.947") per the tire manufacturer (Michelin).
I confirmed my assertion that it's 35s by running it through a tire diameter calculator (I do track days), and looking at outer tire diameters for tires for 23" wheels as a sanity check. Moreover, several media outlets (Autopian - partly run by a Jeep fanatic - The Drive, others) agree with me -- they are indeed 35".
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To be fair, for off-road tires, they're usually coded different. For example, a Hummer H1 which indeed has a 37" outer diameter tire, is coded as 37X12.5-16.5. But the Escalade IQs tires are coded as normal passenger tires, or 275/50R24.
Mixing tire sizes then mentioning EV's vs Gas and Trucks vs Cars, makes the article wrong. Same tire size with a 17 inch rim vs a 18 inch rim, the 17 will feel smoother ride for more tire wall size. So many different use cases, a blanket statement that small tires are better is wrong.
I just bought an mx5. I'm not a car guy so I don't know the right words, and that really just reveals I don't actually know how this functions.
But I live in NH and "taco" these rims on our weather worn highways. My old jeep has thick, chubby tires that seem to only smoosh into them, and then deflect back out, intact.
I'd love to "downgrade" the wheels on my mx5 and then put tires with a taller sidewall on it - picture the Delorean after Doc55 got it ready for 1885. But I think then, I am messing with the braking surface and reducing the car's stopping ability. Maybe.
I did just learn that they're called 'tires' cause they are attire for cars. I think this is literal and not a lazy pun.
You can get smaller wheels as long as the diameter of the new wheel and tire is close to your OEM diameter, and rhe new wheels are big enough for your brake calipers to fit inside them. Tire Rack's website has a good tool for finding a set.
Remember the 70s and the energy crisis which spawned the sub-compact car? Can't we just go back to that instead of giant vehicles with an auto loan that is bigger than the mortgages of the 70s? Better gas mileage, traffic moves faster, more parking spaces, AND they are light enough they can handle driving in the snow far better.
Do bigger wheels imply better offroading performance? In India the capable Suzuki Jimny is mocked for being undertyred (15 inches) compared to mall going crossovers.
The size of the wheels and tires doesn't matter as much as the weight of the wheels and tires. We should be optimizing for puncture resistant tires with lightweight wheels. Size doesn't matter, except for aesthetics.
47 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadSecond the trend of using these wheels and tire combinations is partially because consumers want that look but primarily for stability of these obnoxiously sized chassis to body ratio that people want in vehicles. Partially due to emissions standards and partially due to ride comfort manufacturers are using car chassis and bolting on effectively high profile truck bodies to them (that's your typical crossover). You put on a 14-in rim with a 75% sidewall tire you have a handling nightmare that will result in rollovers. Sticking a large rim with a small profile tire greatly reduces that.
Lastly, yes larger rims are heavier and result in more unsprung weight but the trade-off is (for a factory setup) always worth it for increased handling and stability. This can reduce ride comfort but since you're on a car chassis anyway the suspension is making up the difference for what the tires used to do back in the '80s and '70s and '60s.
This author seriously needs to go find a bone stock car from the mid-70s or even the late 60s and compare it to what he has today. I give this your range because bias tires are just garbage and by the late 60s most manufacturers had started installing radials at that point. Still cars were given high profile tires. A sports car would not be uncommon to have a 225 65 R15 tire. Total mush with atrocious handling. Still if you're going to smack curbs enough to put dime-size holes in it the only thing it might save is scratching up your steel rim which was also god awful heavy compared to modern alloy rims that are bigger.
If you want smaller wheels and tires you need to go with smaller overall vehicles. Manufacturers don't do this for looks as their primary reason. They do it because it's what's required to keep the car safe and stable and meet the safety standards that are mandated. Nobody wants smaller cars because the safety rating goes through the floor because smaller cars you can only make them so safe due to the weight constraints of having a smaller car.
Given that the weight and size of vehicles has constantly been increasing (largely due to the auto co's "nice family you got, pity if something ... happened to it" marketing campaigns) some increase in size would make sense from a perf standpoint. I think the author's argument is that it's gone far beyond that. And CU, at least, seems to agree.
Stock tires now days a have a lower profile from the past, and when choosing the normal wheel and tire option the ride quality will be better than the cars from days gone by. Tires for cars used to have very large sidewall ratios, 15 inch rim and 75% was common for a passenger sedan. That was a marshmallow with bad road feel and coupled with the soggy suspension setups the cars would be considered dangerous by modern standards. The 17" 50% tires that are common today provide much better handling and the unsprung weight is likely less than the past. All of this makes a better and safer car.
One thing people always forget when talking tire sidewalls is that larger side wall generates more heat in a tire and can promote failure. All that sidewall flex makes heat every time it rolls around. Small rims and big sidewalls, shorten tire life and not in the way of a curb hit like the author had. It shortens it in a way of highway speed delamination which is never fun. (From personal experience). The Ford bronco rollovers had this catastrophic blowout issue as the trigger that exposed poor suspension.
Around 5-6 years ago we passed better grip and handling and moved well into harsh ride, bent wheels, and higher unsprung mass territory.
I’m convinced one the the major factors driving the SUV revolution along with high driving position and CAFE light truck regs is higher aspect ratio tires compared with the equivalent sedan or wagon. The SUV has huge wheels but also has higher aspect tires, so you still get some sidewall flex and acceptable ride. The sedan equivalent has rubber band tires that crash on even reasonably maintained pavement (a bar many cities cannot reach), so of course the better ride wins even if the vehicle is far heavier and more expensive.
OTOH, everyone who sees the car, almost to a person, comments on how much they like the wheels.
You want an electric hatch? Then you also need to buy a bunch of stuff you don't need and they'll stick chrome bits everywhere on your car. Don't want the chrome? Sorry not possible.
Low profile tires are stiffer and should therefore be damaged more easily.
There's no way to tell from the story how the accident happened, but I wouldn't rule out that a more flexible tire would have just deformed instead of tearing.
-- Rich Boy
The rubber band tires are almost entirely for show. A 2024 Camry weighs in around 3,300 lbs and comes stock with 205/65-16 tires. A 1998 BMW 528i comes in somewhere north of 3,500 lbs and came stock with 225/60-15 tires that have a taller sidewall than the Camry. You'd be hard pressed to convince me that the Camry rides and handles better.
A 2023 Corolla and 2000 3-series are roughly the same weight. Both got "good" ratings from the IIHS across all the tests.Neither of these are low profile tires and both are sedans and not crossovers that have a high center of gravity.
Also a while Corolla is classified as a compact car it's curb weight is 3000lbs. This is heavy car, largely due to mandatory safety things. While that's all we'll and and good, heavier car requires better suspension and tires than a lighter car. Which is why you see 18" and 40 profile tires are every version except the hybrid.
Now if we compare it to a compact of the past like the humble Ford pinto. It weighs in at a feather weight of 2000-2200lbs depending on the version. Massive weight difference from an modern compact. As vehicle weigh goes up other things must change too.
I think my point about smaller cars was lost. It was meant to mean that in most first world countries we can no longer get actual smaller cars. The safety rules that we want in place for our vehicles preclude them from being sold here.
The fact that the Camry can provide "modern" levels of driving dynamics on tires that aren't super low profile supports this. Even so there's no engineering reason Toyota couldn't offer a 15" wheel option. It's all about style over substance.
Cars vs SUVs/crossovers is a red herring as all vehicles (in the states at least) have been getting larger and larger wheels. SUVs that offered car-like driving dynamics only came out as the trend towards larger wheels took off. It'd be perfectly reasonable to sell such a vehicle with smaller wheels but it probably wouldn't sell well as people have been conditioned to think it looks weird.
That being said all the cars I looked at when I bought my car had a spare tire as an option (by default you wouldn't get one)
So it'll impact e.g. the fuel consumption you can advertise.
Chevy also put my battery in the trunk for weight distribution reasons, which makes the available space there even less. Maybe they felt they could do that because there was no spare.
I love my Camaro but it is definitely a "pay to play" vehicle.
Oftentimes, spare wheels are very tiny compared to the wheel they're replacing and just made to get you to the tire place.
The challenge with a donut on my car is trying to fit over/around the brake calipers associated hardware.
I've been lucky so far: in the 13 years I've own the car, I've had only one slow leak due to a nail. I haven't needed a spare yet.
there is a trend to put instead of spare inflation kit + sealant. costs savings and such
Edit: none of these were hybrids or EVs, so it's not just batteries.
My later cars both had no spares neither an emergency solution like the previous one had. I used a foam tire sealer once, worked wonders on a small puncture.
Couple weeks ago I managed to completely fuck up a tire on my volvo with no spare. Had to call assistance number, they sent a tow truck.. Spent half a day sorting it out.
Donks are a clear cut example of this within that subculture.
For comparison, the Hummer H1's tire outer diameter was 37". We're quite nearly to that level of insanity.
I'd reckon just a tire is going to weigh nearly 50lbs (22.6kg), with the wheel about the same. I can't imagine how "fun" changing a 100lb wheel+tire is going to be when rotating tires. Moreover, the reality is the cost of the those tires will be comparable to near R-compound top-end performance car tires. Never having personally considered tires/wheels that weighed anywhere near this, I wonder what the point was when shops had to get entirely new wheel balancing machines, etc. to adequately accommodate these ever larger sizes and weights.
The battery impact for an EV is also going to be substantial, as is the impact to braking performance. It's really just maddening.
24” wheel + 2 in above wheel + 2 in below wheel = 28” diameter, which seems much more reasonable.
Am I missing something?
For example, I have 35mm sidewall sports car tires on 20" (only wheel offered by the manufacturer) diameter wheels. That would be less than 23" if we calculated as you did. The actual total diameter of an inflated tire though is ~27" (26.947") per the tire manufacturer (Michelin).
I confirmed my assertion that it's 35s by running it through a tire diameter calculator (I do track days), and looking at outer tire diameters for tires for 23" wheels as a sanity check. Moreover, several media outlets (Autopian - partly run by a Jeep fanatic - The Drive, others) agree with me -- they are indeed 35".
---
To be fair, for off-road tires, they're usually coded different. For example, a Hummer H1 which indeed has a 37" outer diameter tire, is coded as 37X12.5-16.5. But the Escalade IQs tires are coded as normal passenger tires, or 275/50R24.
Agreed that 35” tires on an SUV is absolutely insane.
But I live in NH and "taco" these rims on our weather worn highways. My old jeep has thick, chubby tires that seem to only smoosh into them, and then deflect back out, intact.
I'd love to "downgrade" the wheels on my mx5 and then put tires with a taller sidewall on it - picture the Delorean after Doc55 got it ready for 1885. But I think then, I am messing with the braking surface and reducing the car's stopping ability. Maybe.
I did just learn that they're called 'tires' cause they are attire for cars. I think this is literal and not a lazy pun.