will a wider tire give you better traction or will a small width tire give you better traction? I know that i've heard that a wider tire in the rain can make you skid or hydroplane, but i just like the look of a big, and wide tire and i think it would look good on my truck. Any suggestions? I'm hoping to get some mud terrain tires for my truck but i would rather have big and wide ones to make my truck have a tougher look


If anyone can help, plz do



Thanks


TacomaDrew

 

My experience with wider tires is they didn't drive as well onroad. They always wanted to follow the groove of the road. Offroad depending on the terrain they can be an advantage or a disadvantage it all depends.

 

i have 31x13.5 swampers for my trail tires and they DO follow the ruts on paved road pretty bad. but offroad they're a godsend and i swear by them. see if you can do what i do and get 2 sets of tires, one for street driving and one for offroading.

 

Short answer: Yes, a wider tire will give you more traction than a narrow tire, to a point. General rule of thumb is you can go 20mm wider per tire w/o needing to think about re-gearing, power mod improvements, etc.

Long answer: Depends on the vehicle & how you drive it. I.E. If you put wider tires (to a point) on a performance car, you will have better cornering and obviously more grip on the road, but other things may suffer.

Larger tires are only good to a point. Let's say you have a 4 cyl. ricer with 185's as standard tires. Put on 195's and you'll have a little better traction & acceleration won't really suffer. Put on 225's (if you could even fit them) and cornering will be spectacular on dry pavement, but you will hydroplane in the wet and your acceleration will drop due to the amount of friction you've added that your engine now has to overcome to get you goin'.

The reason you will hydroplane easier is because you've dispersed the weight of your vehicle more by putting on larger tires.

Stand on one foot in the snow and you will see a heavy, deep footprint. Put on snowshoes (for those of us that have snow )and you'll see a full snowshoe print, but it won't be as deep & imprinted because you've dispersed your weight, like putting on bigger tires.

You're not pushing your tread to the pavement as hard anymore, not forcing the water out as much, so it remains under your tire and causes the hydroplaning effect.

Hope this helps.

Al

 

a running 32x11.50s on my Runner and love the look and style they add to my truck. But they do have a tedancy to hydrplane alot easir than my OEM 30x9.50s. But for the look and off-road(as much s I can get into with 2WD) tey rock. I will definatly be getting some 33x12.50s for my next set of tires simply because I want that extra 1" of width,I love the wide and agressive stance they give. I say go w/ the wider MTs if you off-raod at all or if you just want a better looking truck, ut if your aprehensive at all about the hydroplane issue then stray awa, because it will definatley cach you off gaurd at the worst times(I speek from experiance on that one). Good Luck. Lets see some pics. after you get your new shoes on there.