Rampant ignorance being passed off as fact, given as advice to someone with a legitimate question. Hopefully they don't take said advice.
I just don't understand. How do people come up with stuff like this?
I have seen as wide as 255 (235 is a rare size anyway) but really there is no point unless you really think a much more expensive tire is worth the looks. Even on a properly sized wheel a 255 has no more contact patch than a 225 (or a 205 or 195 for that matter) and they are more sensitive to bad camber changes. I would rather have traded my PGT swirlies for some mazda6 swirlies and run 215 or 205 tires instead of the ones I just bought. It would have saved a ton of money and have performed as good or better on anything other than a fast road course. Its fact , look it up. If you put 195s on you car and measured the contact patches and then installed 255s and measured the patches they would work out to very nearly the same size. Different shape but same square inch number. Also a larger patch will in no way increase traction! It goes against common sense but then so dose the idea that brakes with more surface area dont generate any more brakng force than smaller brakes. As for why more powerful cars wear larger rubber... its the same reason they have larger rotors and pads. Heat capacity and disipation. Eli, I bet your 205s tires are not remotely the same as your 245 tires. Am I right? Have you considered that compound, tread and carcass construction might play a role in how the tires perform compared to one another? At he risk of over simplifying things I would suggest running the absolutely smallest tire (width wise) you can without running into heat issues. If you only ever drive to and from work and possibly some light to light fun then you dont need the largest possible tire. If you race at a track or autoX and find the tires getting greasy during the race/run then first consider the brand and compound then look at up sizing. Not for "added traction" but extended traction through better heat management. Its a common thing for high level racing efforts to find a performance edge by down sizing a bit to reduce drag, both aero and through reduced mass. The better teams size tires to the specific track, tracks with longer straights or higher average speed need larger tires while shorter tracks can benefit from narower tires.
