The main reason the automakers are doing away with the spare tire is to save weight for better gas mileage. Increased trunk/interior space is also a consideration. The spare tire has sort of become obsolete to many motorists since many don’t know how to install one, most have cell phones, and many also have AAA or some other roadside assistance program.
Back to the original post: 205/55R16 is hardly considered low profile any more, with the trend moving toward tires with an aspect ratio of 40% or less, mostly for the sake of fashion. All other pertinent points have been touched on by others.
I also agree that the rubber band tires and gargantuan rims on SUVs and trucks is ridiculous looking, and the Caprices with the lift kits to fit 24s are no better. The worst offender I have seen so far is a guy I went to high school with. He used to have a ZR2 S-10, the one that came from the factory with a body and suspension lift and big, beefy off-road tires. He discarded the factory aluminum rims and BFG All Terrain T/A KO tires in favor of 24" chrome rims with rubber band profile tires. Talk about a goofy looking truck!
Low profile tires have gone past sensible limits . They do damage easily which often leads to damage to rim . I would be uncomfortable buying a car with anything under a 50 section tire .
The new Fiskar comes with 35 series tires, according to Motor Trend.
I agree with Mark regarding the reasons spares are disappearing in lieu of repair kits. Personally, I think it’s another example of government regulations having unintended negative consequences.
I’m still suspicious that wheels are getting bigger and aspect rations shrinking to reduce overall wheel/tire weight. I wish I had some variety of tires & wheels available to do a weight comparison between two different conbinations that accomplish the same tread width and circumference. I’d like to check my theory out. Any volunteers?
Nope, C and D did a recent comparison, total weight increased as rim size went up and aspect raio went down. The reason? The amount of heavy metal rim required increases with the wheel diameter, more than making up for the loss in tire sidewall. 15s were 40 lbs (tire+wheel), 19s were 54 lbs.
Read more here:
Thanks Texases. I’ve asked the question, posited the theory, before, but this is the first concrete evidence I’ve seen. And the difference is apparently significant. Knowing this, I’m surprised manufacturers aren’t moving toward smaller rims to reduce rotating mass. Perhaps as the CAFE requirements become more stringent they’ll have to.
It seems that the opinions of myself and other critics of the cartoonish extravagance were correct. Some lady was on one of the “believe it or not” documentaries last week with her nails grown out to a total of over 15 feet in length. Like those who spend the money for the outrageous wheels/tires, she thought she looked more attractive. And if anyone else saw that program, did you notice how the lady supported herself while she groomed her nails? Like the 700 pound people it’s curious how they are able to pay their bills. None appear to have won the lottery or inherited a fortune. Maybe I need to find a part time job and quit watching so much television though. With over 50 channels there’s still not much to watch and I am wearing out my welcome here.
Do not think for a moment that you’re wearing out your welcome here. You’re a valuable and certainly knowledgable contributor and I for one would not want to see your contributions disappear.
Aesthetics are a funny thing. Clearly while the same vision stimulates the same rods & cones in all of us, once that electrical signal goes from the optic nerve to the brain the brain does sometimes atrange things with it.
“once that electrical signal goes from the optic nerve to the brain the brain does sometimes atrange things with it”.
the same mountain bike–
You may have hit on Triedaq’s problem. There is supposed to be a capacitor between the optic nerve and the brain to act as a reservoir to preserve information. Triedaq seems to have a resistor there instead which impedes the flow of information as to what he has observed and causes him to resist change. Apparently, this is a high impudence resistor.
Neal Boortz once had a discourse on the cost of cool looking 20 or 22" wheels on how much money they actually cost a poor person vs the stock wheels and how much money that person could have saved if they would have invested that money-rather then just going for the" cool look".Personally I would be happy with15 or 16 inch wheels(would love more standard things so to speak) but performance parameters and marketplace dynamics would dictate mixing things up a little bit,even if the benefits are at best dubious at times.I used to harp about extravagence,but discontent creates jobs and keeps our money circulating-Kevin
Regarding the weight difference between large diameter wheels and smaller wheels, I have observed this firsthand. Larger diameter wheels definitely weigh more. The first time I removed the wheels from a '04-up Dodge Ram pickup with the factory 20" wheels, I was amazed at how much they weighed. Also, we had a guy who drove a Lincoln Navigator who was a frequent customer. For some odd reason (I think I know why), he was always having problems with wheel bearings, front suspension parts, brakes, and pretty much anything else the wheels were attached to. Whenever this truck would pull into the parking lot, there was always a mad dash for the restroom and an argument/debate/coin toss/rock-paper-scissors match over who had to pull the wheels on the darn thing. This guy had 26" wheels that probably weighed close to a hundred pounds each.
I knew a Neals Boortz in Copenhagen. He worked at the Carlsberg Brewerie. Good man — had a lot of crazy stories about the war. Always thought the Germans were after him.
Mrs. T, you are OK. I was about to correct “high impudence” to “high impedence”…and then I realized “impudence” was the better choice, and no doubt intentional.
I didn’t realize that the really large diameter wheels with a skinny, flat piece of rubber attached to them were that much heavier than a smaller rim with larger profile tires; after all, these super-size diameter rims are made of aluminum, so one would think they wouldn’t be as heavy as they seem to be. I would say that an exception to this would be a smaller diameter rim, but wider than stock, with big mud-terrain off-road tires used on lifted trucks and SUVs. For example, my “02 Silverado is lifted 4” above stock (and that’s if it still had the factory LT-255-75R 16s on the factory rims); in addition to the lift it has 16x10 American rims with LT-305-70R 16 Toyo Mud-Terrain tires. These tires are 33" tall with almost a foot of tread width, compared to the original 29" tall tires with 7.5" treads. The bigger tires give my truck an additional 2" lift to the lift kit, so it rides about 6" above stock height. I know that these mud tires are really heavy, because they have much thicker sidewalls and treads than normal tires, not to mention high profile sidewalls. My guess is that a 28" aluminum rim with a thin 3" sidewall tire would weigh less than my big 33" mud tires on 16s. Anyone who disagrees, just correct me if I’m wrong with this assumption.
I have posted this previously: We have three cars, with 13", 15" and 17" wheels. The car that drives the best has the 13" wheels. According to my particular experience, handling is more due to suspension design, not tires. The worst handling/driving car that I owned was not improved with the installation of Michelin X tires in the early 1980s. Those were about the best tires that could be had at that time. As an experiment, I took them off another car that we owned that drove very well.
Our car with 17" wheels came without a spare tire of any kind but instead had the sealant and air pump. I pictured us with a flat tire 100 miles from home, in an inner city, on the freeway, in the rain or in a snowstorm in the middle of the night and so I bought the compact spare and jack kit. Now I feel much better.
Better gas mileage due to weight reduction from omitting the compact spare is marketing propaganda in my view. 75 extra pounds for a spare tire and jack in a car that weighs 3000 or more pounds is insignificant, especially during steady state highway speeds. The real reason for omitting the spare tire is cost reduction.
“I was about to correct “high impudence” to “high impedence”…and then I realized “impudence” was the better choice, and no doubt intentional.”
It could just as easily be “imprudence”, because it’s imprudent to disagree with the missus. All well trained men know that. I may need remedial instruction, though…
Whawho…why no spare ? In addition to your good reasons, I might add space savings. In the two SUVs I have, the spare tire influences internal storage dramatically. With it mounted under my 4runner, it takes away from cargo storage depth inside, and with it mounted on the door of the RAV, it means a swing open door which many don’t like.
Tires are getting wider, spares too. Solution is space savers or none at all. When tires were real skinny, my 78 Subaru spare mounted over the motor in front. That didn’t last long. Going to wider tires has put a lot of pressure on internal space. Spare tires cost so little, I’m inclined to feel that space is the biggest culprit.