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
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Thank you for all of the information and pics.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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I have posted here befor and let me just say that I have not heard this info from Mercedes/smart but I am trying to get an answer.
The smart was DESIGNED to use different sized tires front to rear and I think that since Mercedes engineers made it that way it is that way for a reason.
In my experience, a tire with a skinny width is used to have a small (in square inches) contact area which equates to more Pounds per square inch. Now why is this important?
Because the smart is a rear engined/rear drive car and there is less weight on the front wheels.
As I have said before, if you put wider tires on the front, this lowers the pounds/square inch and also makes it more difficult because of the contact patch of the tire to squish (technical term) out water and get down to the pavement through snow.
This can lead to hydroplaning, and while some feel that it is impossible in a smart to hydroplane because of the Skid Correction ESP provides, the onset of hydroplaning or something similar MUST occur before the ESP system tries to correct it, that is just how the system works so a bit of instability will occur befor the system fixes it.
That being said,
Have fun in climates where the sun shines with wider tires, you may be doing the right thing.
But for others in other areas of the US and the world, sticking to the original tires assures all the safety and stability that Mercedes and smart engineers intended.
And PS, The Brabus has wider tires on the front 175's actually but think about this, it also has wider than stock tires on the rear...215's so this has to do with the BALANCE of the car and I think a bit more time than flipping a coin and reading a couple of blogs went into the decision. Switching to these sizes though smarter than some decisions will provide worse behavior in water and snow and may still be inappropriate in a standard smart becaus the car will not thave the lowered suspension these tires were designed to work with.
As I said, I will continue to try to contact smart regarding this situation to get the best possible answer. I was just trying to get a basic answer out before some people spent money on tires they may not benefit from.
Thanks!
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Thanks for this. Please stay on it and report. Valuable.
Living in CT, it looks like I should stay with the originals for snow.
But what if I use snows in the front......? If they are available.
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There is a great snow tire available and I would put them all around on your smart!
They are manufactured by Continental and made exactly for this application.
Prices should be about 550 installed on your wheels and balanced plus local tax. Check with your dealer.
I believe there is a tire form other manufascturers as well But the Conti is a great tire.
I have driven the car in the winter and with all the standard equipmewnt like Bosch ABS, Mercedes traction/skid and ESP, it handles better than most other cars because they do not even offer these features as an option! What great Value!
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John - here are a couple of discussions you should check out.
http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/f4/winter-driving-stock-tir...
http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/f64/winter-snow-tires-there...
http://www.smartcarofamerica.com/forums/f4/fyi-smart-snow-tires-16807/
Also if you search the forums you should be able to find much more info.
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