Know your tires ABC, crims, rims, 22's to 32's

[Plex]

So you have decided to upsize your wheel. When i mean upsize i mean putting a larger wheel.

Most cars comes with 14" & 15" as standard size apart from larger cars coming with 17" as standard..

For the average guy putting 17" ,18", 19" & 20" is quite popular. But before you rush out to the store to buy you should be aware of some terms which are offset & PCD.

Offset is normally stamped or engraved into the wheel and is measured in millimeters of ET: ET is the short form of the German word Einpresstiefe which translates as insertion depth.

Offset is the distance between the hub mounting face at the back of the wheel and the wheel's centerline.

Negative Offset wheels have their mounting face toward the rear of the wheel - powerful rear-wheel drive cars often have wheels with negative offset.

Zero Offset wheels have their mounting face even with the centerline of the wheel and are by definition ET0.

Positive Offset wheels have their mounting face toward the front face of the wheel. Front wheel drive vehicles usually have positive ET wheels.

PCD stands for pitch circle diameter and is the diameter of a circle drawn through the centre of your wheel's bolt holes. P.C.D. is measured in millimeters and also indicate the number of studs or bolts the wheel will have. Some cars are 4x100 etc.

Once you know your car specs you can safetly buy your wheels. Get this wrong and you put yourself not only discomfort but costly issues.

Now the next question why up size? Well these are the benefits.

Benefits
Plus-Sizing will develop the handling of your car! Each step will decrease the proportion of flexible tire sidewall to rigid alloy. This will improve response, will help keep the tire tread square to the road and will improve your car's feedback. If done correctly speed and odometer accuracy will retain and the car look better.

Why not to?

Disadvantages
Often, tire inches are lighter than wheel inches. Plus-sizing can make your overall wheel/tire package heavier. Reducing the profile of your tires will also decrease your car's damping deflection under compression the ride quality will get worse. Other disadvantages can include the need for more expensive tires, your brakes looking undersized and people's grannies laughing and calling your car a buggy.

But so far i really see no disadvantages, us Trinis like to run big & bling ..

Just remeber the larger the rim size the smaller the tire profile. From my experience potholes are not your friends so be on the look out for them. Hit that hard and start thinking of getting a new set of wheels.

Well that my contributions i am sure there is more to add...The next issue is what brand. There are so many brands out there. Thats another story..

[Plex]

I remeber long time ago buying tires and i used to see writings on the tyre and wonder what the jail is that...

So here it is..Lets say you have a tyre size of 250/40R/17 89W

The 205 is width of the tyre normally taken from the side wall to side wall measured in mm. The wider the tyre the more surface contact you have however do put the right size on your car..

The 40 series is the profile... The sidewall is expressed as a % of the width of the trye. Its the height of the tyre sidewall..Now using the 40 series as a example the sidewall is going to really small if it is a 205/40/17..The lower the profile the harder the ride..So keep that in mind..However if you look at a 205/40/17 and look at 215/40/17 you will notice the side wall is a little taller than the 205/40/17..

The R this is what the tyre compound is made of. Different brand uses this coumpounds to make the tyre handle well if different weather conditions.

The 17" is the rim size..

The 89 normally called the load index. What this is it tell you how much weight can be placed on each tyre. So for example a 89 load index can support about give or take around 1270 -1280 ..So if your car normally carries lots of heavy stuff low profile may not be choice..

Last the W i call it the speed rating..This give an idea the maximum of rotation the tyre can handle before it blows or sheds to pieces..To me this is really for a matter for performance tuned cars, however even if your car is not tuned i guess there is no harm in looking at this..

One thing had me puzzled was different brands of tires are not the same..I used a 205/40/17 and when i bought another brand of 205/40/17 the side was a little taller...Strange is it??? Same specs but not same size....

[blackwagon]

well for the guys and gals who into speed..be wary that bigger rims and speed dont really go hand in hand with our road conditions..d potholes and stuff na.. kinda keep it around 15's or 16's with at least a 50 profile..

[southside connections]

nice i finally know that u all these figures mean lol