Aftermarket Wheels & Tires

My career as an automotive improvement expert began when I modified my first car. Since then, as a car enthusiast and published author, my obsession with the automobile has led me to enhance tons of vehicles both inside and out. That’s why I’m thrilled to be a part of a brand new series designed to help keep your car looking great and your engine running like new! I’m Chris Duke, and welcome to eHow’s Auto Center brought to you by Mobil1! Hey Chris, I’m thinking about buying some aftermarket wheels and tires for my car, to improve the look and performance. What should I look for? Thanks John. Custom wheels and tires are the perfect thing to make your ride stand out on the line, but there are a lot of things to consider when you make your purchase - other than just looks. Your tires are carrying the weight of your car so if you decide to customize your tires make sure you select tires with the same or higher load and speed rating for your specific vehicle. If your load rating is too low, your tires can overheat, causing tire damage, and possibly causing an accident—and you don’t want that! To find the maximum load rating for your current tires, just look on the sidewall for where it says “max load”. So, before you plop down a ton of cash on the wrong decision, here are a few other things to consider. If you are thinking about going with a larger wheel and tire combination, be careful. Most vehicles can only handle a slight increase in diameter without modifications to your suspension or worse—cutting away metal! So, you want to avoid increasing the overall diameter, or if you do—be sure to go with a tire that has less sidewall. The weight of the wheel is another factor. If you are thinking about going with a larger wheel and tire combination, be careful. Sure, it looks cool—but there are a few drawbacks. First, there’s the weight problem. More metal means more weight. That can decrease overall performance because your engine’s got to push a heavier vehicle. This isn’t always the case, however. If you’re moving from steel wheels to aluminum wheels, then you might actually be losing weight, even with a larger diameter wheel! This also leads to a rougher ride, but it does have the benefit of better cornering due to the decrease in sidewall flex. Changing the diameter of the tire will also change your speedometer, giving you an incorrect speed. This is a quick way to get a speeding ticket if you don’t correct it. On late model vehicles, a programmer will do the trick. On older vehicles, you’ll have to change the speedometer gear in the transmission. If your goal is to take your truck or SUV off-road, then you’re probably looking at increasing your tire diameter, and possibly going with a more aggressive tread. The larger tire gives you more ground clearance, and the change-up in tread will give you better performance on rough terrain. Muscle car owners and racers like to opt for wider tires because they create a larger contact patch, improve stopping distance, and decrease loss of traction when accelerating hard. The downside to wider tires is they can decrease your gas mileage due to all the extra friction and weight. When in doubt, check with your vehicle manufacturer’s recommendation for wheel and tire sizes. If you do wish to push it, just be sure to do your research. There are a lot of online enthusiast forums out there, and there’s most likely one for your vehicle. Why not login, introduce yourself, and ask for their recommendations? They’ve most likely been there and done that already, and, like all of us gear heads, they love to share their advice and are never short on opinions. Here’s one final tip: in addition to everything I’ve mentioned, you also want to select tires with the same or higher load and speed rating for your specific vehicle. If your load rating is too low, your tires can overheat, causing tire damage, and possibly causing an accident—and you don’t want that! To find the maximum load rating for your current tires, just look on the sidewall for where it says “max load”. Changing up your wheels and tires gives your vehicle a personalized look and more performance, but there are a lot of things to consider besides looks. Check your load rating and do plenty of research because new wheels and tires aren’t cheap and you usually can’t return them after they’ve been mounted, balanced, and installed. Thanks again for the question John and remember you can check back here for more episodes. For eHow’s Auto Center, I’m Chris Duke. Here’s to helping keep your car running like new!