Staggered Wheels

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terrymcg

Active Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
298
Location
Perth, WA.
Car
W164 ML 320CDI
Wondering if anyone can answer my question.

What is to be gained by have staggered wheel sizes, not tyre sizes. I understand the wider rear tyre and all that. But you can have wider rear tyres on lets say 8.5 wheels all round? Just curious, thats all....
 
more grip as the w202 and nearly all mercedes are rear wheel drive over a certain bhp you need more rubber for all conditions

safer driving in dry and wet
 
Last edited:
same wheel different tyre sizes

Wondering if anyone can answer my question.

What is to be gained by have staggered wheel sizes, not tyre sizes. I understand the wider rear tyre and all that. But you can have wider rear tyres on lets say 8.5 wheels all round? Just curious, thats all....

You can use a different tyre size on the same width wheels. There is a maximum and minimum size (tyre) for a designated wheel width. Heres a helpful link...

Car Bibles : The Wheel and Tyre Bible Page 1 of 4
 
As said more rubber so more grip with rear wheel drive
 
Yeah i understand in relation to tyre width and grip, but as said above you can stagger the tyre size on the same width wheel as long as you dont exceed the max and min width. So i guess wider rears are only needed when the above happens.

What i mean for the majority of us you could fit a 225 front and 255 rear on an 8.5 wheel, so what does staggering with the above sizes achieve? Or is a 225 a bit of a stretch on an 8.5?
 
Looks...the rear axle tends to be narrower on the rear of Mercedes, staggering improves the looks.
 
On a RWD car:
Wider tyres on driven axle good.
Wider tyres on steering axle bad.
Big gap between width of driven and steering axle bad.

Hence optimum is slightly wider on driven axle, slightly narrower on steering axle.
 
On a RWD car:
Wider tyres on driven axle good.
Wider tyres on steering axle bad.
Big gap between width of driven and steering axle bad.

Hence optimum is slightly wider on driven axle, slightly narrower on steering axle.

...but, wide tyres all round...better.

Let's face it, most people do it for the looks.
 
...but, wide tyres all round...better.

Let's face it, most people do it for the looks.

Why would you want wide tyres on the steered axle?
 
Yeah i understand in relation to tyre width and grip, but as said above you can stagger the tyre size on the same width wheel as long as you dont exceed the max and min width. So i guess wider rears are only needed when the above happens.

What i mean for the majority of us you could fit a 225 front and 255 rear on an 8.5 wheel, so what does staggering with the above sizes achieve? Or is a 225 a bit of a stretch on an 8.5?

225 on 8.5 is fine, you can use the Rimwidthulator on this page to check sizes.

as for the other question, wider rims on the rear maintains the profile curvature, and thus the flex of the tyre to within certain parameters, get the sizes wrong and all sorts of weird stuff can happen, from increased noise, increased ride harshness to tyres not wanting to stay where they should on the rim during hard use.

Also a number of mercedes use lower profile tyres on the rea to reduce tyre roll on the rim, and this too will be calculated taking the rim width into account !
 

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