Staggered tires and understeer

Oh. I thought you had an accord and just swapped on a pair of 10mm wider front tires and that completely eliminated understeer on a FWD sedan famous for understeer.

I bought my C4 with ZO6 imitation rims, so 275's up front and 295's on the rear.

Auto-crossing with this setup gave me understeer and snap like oversteer when the rear broke loose.

To try to save money on tires, I started running stock rims (not staggered) with 255's all the way around. (275's were stock all around.) The car is now much more tail happy and I have yet to get under-steer except due to pilot error.

Totally transformed the car. I know it is slower, but it drives different and I don't have the skills to take advantage of extra grip.

My e36 M3 came with the staggered setup, 17x7.5 front, 17x8.5 rear with 225/45 front, 245/40 rear. I simply got another pair of rear wheels which fit right on, and ran 245s all around. Eliminated the understeer and improved the braking by having more tire in the front.

that is another car I never understood the staggered set up on.. the E36 M3. it handles SO much better with same width rubber all around

...Which is exactly why they changed it in '96 to induce more understeer. Instead of a 'race car for the street' like the E30 M3 was, BMW sold the E36 M3 as the "top of the range 3-series!" and thes sold thousands of them (to golfers, middle-managers, trophy wives, retirees...). I can't even imagine an E30 M3 being sold with a slushbox, but E36 M3's were sold far and wide with automatics.

In reply to nderwater:

Seeing an automatic convertible M3 with chromed wheels if enough to make me cry.

I never knew there were automatic M3's... I knew they had the automanual on E46's...

An example of an OEM implenting this strategy is with Honda "taming" the handling of the s2000. a big part of that "upgrade" was going with staggered wheels/tires.

They didn't tame the S2000 by going with staggered tire sizes, the S has always come with staggered tire sizes. When they made the change they actually made the rear tires a little narrower compared to the original which gave less stagger. The original had tires that were quite a bit wider than their rated size. When they switched to the 17" tires the rears were a more normal size for their rating. They did soften the rear end up some so that the FWD ricer boys who drove a RWD car for the first time wouldn't kill themselves.

It takes a completely different set of reaction patterns to drive a RWD than a FWD. I was an early adopter of the FWD concept with the Saab Sonett. I never could get it right.

I admire people who can drive both equally as well.

But back to the original thread topic, from a practical standpoint I definitely prefer same size all the way around. It makes it much easier to rotate the tires and they last longer.

scardeal wrote: I never knew there were automatic M3's... I knew they had the automanual on E46's...

Yep, they made plenty of automatic E36 M3s, and E46, and now E92. IIRC the only M3 produced where an auto wasn't an option was the E30 M3.

The staggered wheel set-up works just fine on public roads. They dialed the understeer in to protect "non-expert" drivers. You really only notice it on track, which is why I bought the second set of wheels/ tires (same size) for track use. The car is pretty darn neutral with same sizes at all 4 corners.

I figure if I'm pushing the car hard enough to notice the understeer on public roads, I'm being an asshat, and should really slow down. Also, even with the staggered tires the understeer is pretty mild.

lol, I must be an asshat.

nderwater wrote: ...Which is exactly why they changed it in '96 to induce more understeer. Instead of a 'race car for the street' like the E30 M3 was, BMW sold the E36 M3 as the "top of the range 3-series!" and thes sold thousands of them (to golfers, middle-managers, trophy wives, retirees...). I can't even imagine an E30 M3 being sold with a slushbox, but E36 M3's were sold far and wide with automatics.

Nothing like selling out. And to think those very same people hate on my Ti

So the set up I have right now (as inhereted from teh previous owner) of 205 in the front and 235 rear is probably not Ideal... :)

dj06482 wrote: I remember someone racing AI or AIX was experimenting with larger tires up front to get some more grip and less understeer out of their Mustang. It looked wrong, but IIRC, it did improve the handling..

like this...

iceracer wrote: The 911 also has extreme weight distribution. Manufactures may also do this to promote understeer, it's a safety issue. Then again, it puts the bigger tire where the power is. Pontiac did a stagger thing on a FWD car a while ago,only the bigger tires were on front.

I believe they did that on the Grand Prix GXP, since they threw in the 5.3L and had to tame the understeer,... or was it torque steer...I forget.

RossD wrote: I believe they did that on the Grand Prix GXP, since they threw in the 5.3L and had to tame the understeer,... or was it torque steer...I forget.

They killed torque-steer in the Grand Prix 5.3 app by gearing it to something with a theoretical top speed of around ~210mph. I believe first gear is good until something north of 60mph itself.

They then went with more normal gearing in the Impala SS 5.3 and the thing apparently wants to drag itself sideways into the nearest ditch with any heavy throttle.

What garbage cars...

my saab does that too

mad_machine wrote: my saab does that too

http://www.genuinesaab.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=56_28&products_id=34

http://www.genuinesaab.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=56_28&products_id=36

recall a friend who had a fairly neutral to understeering aw11 ('87 so later style suspension)... his 1st set of R rubbers where 185 and 196/60/14...

ran it "tradiational stagger and complained about massive understeer... (duh on a car that is already understeerable)... he swapped the tires around and car became much more neutral... :)...

no real point in my story :)