Put rear tires on the front as well; good idea?

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Permalink Reply by John McGinley on December 12, 2008 at 3:27pm

Thanks for this, but what is a Brabus and what does it have to do with a Smart car? Is this a modification of he Smart? If so what do they do to it? And why?
Thanks

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Permalink Reply by randy zimmer on December 12, 2008 at 4:38pm

A Brabus smart is an option - mostly cosmetic here in the US.
smart USA is also offering all the parts individually.

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Permalink Reply by John McGinley on December 12, 2008 at 7:35pm

An option? What's in it? How do I find out the details? How much? No one here seems to know.

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Permalink Reply by DAN on November 22, 2008 at 3:47am

155/60




R15 and 175/55 R15 are very similar, balanced and they compliment each other.

Fitting standard 9 spoke 175/55 R15 on the front will probably not fit the front because of the different offset involved on front tires and back tires. You probably will also get an ESP and ABS lights on since front will probably rotate faster than rear wheels at speeds more than 30 MPH. Hey if you want to risk voiding warranty I suggests you try that. If you axle and side lining gets ripped off, hey look on the bright side you tried and now share your dumb experiment outcome with all of us.

I tired to do that on mine 05 Smart and 08 Smart.

However you do get a better ride and road handling by increasing your tire contact area. The best way is to order Design 4 6 Spoke wheels from Smart with the following dimensions 175/55 R15 in front and 195/50 R15 in the back or even Brabus Monoblock with 195 in front and 225 in the back. But there is a catch. You are recommended to upgrade your suspension with Brabus Sport suspension package. Coming soon the US Market. I personally drove the following 2008 smarts with configurations on wheels:

with Regular US market 9 Spoke wheels, 155/60 R15 and 175/55 R15 standard suspension

with Regular European 12 Spoke wheels, 155/60 R15 and 175/55 R15 standard suspension

with 6 Spoke wheels, 175/50 R15 and 195/50 R15 standard suspension

and with 6 Spoke wheels, 175/50 R15 and 195/50 R15 with Brabus Sport suspension package.

And the winner was 6 Spoke with Brabus suspension.

The wear and tear, here in New York, on roads is terrible. Almost most of them are filled with pot holes and bumps, It is very natural. First two, while driving on pot hole will give you a very strong knocking noise letting you know your front just hit one. And on bumps you will fill every imperfection on the road, accompanied by shacking and rocking your smart, which will vary drastically on speed of your travel.

It was worse with 6 Spoke. I don’t want even get in to this.

However with 6 Spoke Brabus suspention , WOW, it drove like a regular small sports car. Only major potholes and bumps were noticeable. The attached pictures will give some visual aid.

By the way on snow the 155/60 R15 and 175/55 R15 combo will give a better handling.

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Permalink Reply by Greg on December 2, 2008 at 8:11pm

Thank you for all of the information and pics.

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Permalink Reply by SATO on December 2, 2008 at 11:16pm

Dan, I have now driven with the rears upfront and rears... in the rear for over a month. May I say that I often go WAY above your indicated magic number off 30mph and have never felt or seen the ABS or ESP engage or find a fault. as far as offset goes it WAS true in the 450 but the new 451 has no offset issues. For those of us out there that don't wish to simply cough up a large wad of money to fix something Smart should have done in the first place, the swapping the skinny fronts for the wider rears is a cost effective and GREEN way to go.

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Permalink Reply by DAN on December 3, 2008 at 4:46am

Hi SATO,

You are a risk taker. Yours experiment is a good lesson for all of us. When I had all four of rear wheel alloys on my smart with 175/55 R15 tires it simply didn’t worked out for me.

So I spent time and money by getting Brabus suspension and Six spoke Design 3 alloys with front at 175 and rear tires with 195. This option worked out much better for me personally.

But I am glad to see that you were successful. Good for you and all of us. Hey, can you post some more pics, would be great.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Podnar on December 3, 2008 at 4:56pm

Just a caution for anyone changing from a stock tire on the front of the smart. If you go to a wider tire with greater contact area, you may improve handeling in the dry, but in water or snow, there will be less pound per square inch to get the tire down to the pavement and you might induce a bit of hydroplaneing or worse directional stability in snow. The whole idea of a skinny tire is to get it down to the road surface through the water or snow or whatever so you are connected with the road.
Some feedback from people that have changed and experienced what i am talking about would be appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by mr bad example on December 4, 2008 at 2:41pm

hydroplaning in a smart is impossible (unless you pull or blow fuse #11), the ESP monitors all the tire rotations. the microsecond a front drops speed (slows due to hydroplaning) all the other wheels will brake, the engine will slow, etc.

i found 195's on front wheels to be great in snow on a metro, which also had 155's as stock on all four corners, albeit the metro is FWD.

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Permalink Reply by John McGinley on December 5, 2008 at 1:20am

In a small car one thing you sure don't want is oversteer and hydroplaning. Is it serious? Should one NOT do it in your opinion?

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Permalink Reply by SATO on December 5, 2008 at 2:31am

JOHN FOR PETE'S SAKE YOU ARE OVER THINKING EVERY DARN THING.. Just keep your smart STOCK and that way you can sleep at night not having to worry about any modifications.... I mean even an air freshener could have grave effects if it happens to fly into your eyes when maneuvering your car on the twisty roads where you live! You could loose an EYE!!!!. it could make you sneeze and make you punch the accelerator pedal to the floor, rocketing your smart to 95.7mph... making it over-steer!

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Permalink Reply by Ian Pellant on December 5, 2008 at 6:39pm

Hear. Hear. I second that motion: keep the smart stock standard; as delivered, or choose a fully tried and tested smart alternative.

Only play with third party options if you know what you're doing and have a lot of time and cash to spare. Most mortals will lose money and sleep playing the "what if" game.

The fortwo has been in development since the mid '90s by M-B and a host of advanced thinking engineers. They do everything for a purpose. The fortwo is too small for sloppy design and poor balance.

Having said that; I do have the pulse ... wider wheels and tyres. If you want to play with wheels and tyres, I strongly recommend that someone imports the smart pulse wheel and tyre sets. They work; they are smart blessed. (175 front; 195 rear... they are not the same rims as the pure/passion have on the rear).

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