Interesting Autocar article

[sars]

Just been reading Autocar online, stumbled on an interesting blog about the 1M' 19" standard wheels being swapped for 18" winter wheels and the ride being transformed......

http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/whyilove ... inter.aspx

[AlanJ]

Fitted 18' winter tyres to my wife's 325 from the OEM 19s and the driving experience transformed from harsh to comfortable. Doesn't look as good but form over function I think...!

[BMWZ4MC]

I use my standard 18" wheels for track days, and 19" CSLs to make the car look pretty the rest of the time.
The wider, lower profile 19" tyres are much more noisy on smooth surfaces, and crashy over even small undulations in the tarmac. Even with road tyres on the 18" wheels grip is improved over the 19s, simply by reducing the skittishness of a very stiff car and tyre wall combination.

[Adamski]

Almost begs the question - how good would the ride be with 17s?!

It would most certainly look awful...


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[bigdog]

Heck. I should have kept my 2000 Kenworth W900L for cruising around. As it had 10 22.5" Alcoa Aluminum wheels. That would make me 2.5 times cooler than everyone else.

[Mr Whippy]

It's probably as much to do with the suspension AND the tyres/wheels.

Remember, stiff = sporty.

The wheels are only big to look cool.


And then, as James May pointed out on Top Gear a while back, how many cars are ruined by being honed at the Ring, that place where 1% of owners will go, and where 1% of those people actually drive it to the point they benefit from it's setup (so about 2 people in the world )


Alpina manage to fit 19" wheels and not ruin cars rides quite so much, so I do believe it's as much about suspension too!

If it wasn't stiff and harsh, and had 18" wheels, people would think it wasn't 'sporty' or look as good.


Unfortunately the demographic that makes up most M car buyers these days demand a stupid flawed car. A great shame for those that want a decent M road car.

Dave

[bigdog]

It's probably as much to do with the suspension AND the tyres/wheels.

Remember, stiff = sporty.

The wheels are only big to look cool.


And then, as James May pointed out on Top Gear a while back, how many cars are ruined by being honed at the Ring, that place where 1% of owners will go, and where 1% of those people actually drive it to the point they benefit from it's setup (so about 2 people in the world )


Alpina manage to fit 19" wheels and not ruin cars rides quite so much, so I do believe it's as much about suspension too!

If it wasn't stiff and harsh, and had 18" wheels, people would think it wasn't 'sporty' or look as good.


Unfortunately the demographic that makes up most M car buyers these days demand a stupid flawed car. A great shame for those that want a decent M road car.

Dave

It's even worse in the motorcycle industry. It was a regular occurrence at the shop I worked at to see a kid come in, Go in debt up to their eyes. Then one year later they would come in to get a new bike (didn't matter that they owed more than the old one was worth). When asked why they had to have the new one. About 99% of the time, The only reason given would be that the bike mags tested the new one. And it was .1 seconds faster in the quarter mile. With the young 18-35 motorcyclist demo It mostly came down to ego/penile enhancement/brochure racing, And a bank financed check book bigger than their brain.
There was a great test back in the 1980's when the water cooled, mono shock motoX bikes came out. The magazine took 5 or 10 avg. riders and put them on a new machine. Then put an older retired racer on a ten year old machine. guess who won. The old rider on the crap 10 year old uncool machine.