I've been told if you put rear tire sized tires all around you get a better ride. Maybe this has been discussed previously, but is there anything to this idea?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Thank you for all of the information and pics.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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?
-
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!
Welcome to
451 smart fortwo
Become a Member
or Login
smart Part of Racing History
2008 One Lap of America
Latest Activity on 451s
2 hours ago 