Hi to Everyone. iwas reading through one of the posts about wheel sizes and i was was wondering what the advantages would be with with a staggered set-up. Please enlighteng me as i have 5-spoke amg's 8.5 x 17 (rear with 235/40/17) and 7.5 x 17 front with 235/40/17 thanks in advance for any replies recieved Nick.

Nick:

On cars with ASR, I've found what others on the forum told me to be absolutely true, BIG rear tires keep the ASR from cutting power while increasing cornering speeds.

Non-ASR cars just wanna look good, I guess.

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Dean Albrecht
"Lead, follow, or better yet, get out of the way!"E500 owners motto

The wider rear footprint of a staggered setup does keep ASR at bay by limiting the possibility of rear wheelspin. This will also keep oversteer minimal in cornering. Conversely, this can make a non-ASR car understeer. If you don't have ASR and occasionally enjoy balancing the chassis with the gas pedal you may want to think twice. In most cars, there is a good bit of understeer dialed in anyhow. If you've got ASR or just don't want to worry about oversteer as much then the staggered setup should serve you well. That said, when running a staggered setup, normal front to rear tire rotation becomes impossible. This is especially true if running directional and/or asymmetrical tires (nearly every performance tire these days)

Hope this helps,
Lee

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE,

YOU ARE BACK!!!

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1995 black pearl/black Mercedes-Benz E420 :

Hi Duck,
Indeed I am.....never been entirely "gone", just college @15 credit hours keeps one distracted. I'm trying to catch up. If I don't hit a post or two just drop me an e-mail lee@peachparts.com In any event, thank you for the kind words and I look forward to catching up with all I've missed talking/typing to in awhile.

Lee

Nice to see you back on the board Lee. Are BBS RC rims still your favorite...I'm looking for some lightweight racing rims and remember your raves on those!

By the way, directional tires can be rotated in a fashion...you can swap sides so the back face of the tire on one side is now the front face on the other side. Requires de-mounting the tires but should benefit tread life more than doing nothing??

__________________
Dean Albrecht
"Lead, follow, or better yet, get out of the way!"E500 owners motto

Dean,
I still like the BBS RC's as they are a very "classic" looking rim to me. *G* If you are going racing or really hard core street use whatever is lightest. (that's in your budget and you can stand to look at) I'm sure Luke could tell you exactly what is the lightest wheel available for the E500. True, rotation is possible with a staggered setup (with the dismount/remount approach) but that usually only helps the fronts where outer shoulder wear is the enemy. If both back tires are down near their treadbars, rotating them L/R will not help much. Front tires, which tend to wear the shoulders under aggressive use, do benefit from rotation in a staggered setup provided that they are only directional. (as opposed to directional and asymmetrical like the P-zeros) Good to see you again Dean. How's the E500?

Hope this helps,
Lee

i noticed that the tire sizes of Nick230CE are the same allthroughout. It's just the rear wheels that are wider. As such, there should be no effect with ASR, as long as these tires have (close to) the standard rolling radius.

having the rear tires mounted on wider wheels probably makes the rear tires' footprints "flatter" than the fronts', making the rears stick better especially in lateral loads.

Thanks to everyone replying to my post the main reason i asked this question was because on a few occasions my car seemed to skip/jump whilst driving over a pot hole in the road at around 40-60 m.p.h. so is it possible because i dont have a staggered set-up this is causing the car to jump? well to find out im going to change the rear tyres and put 255/40/17 thus having a staggered set-up of 235/40/17 (front) 255/40/17 (rear) any other comments will be appreciatede thanks Nick.

Ehhhhh your car is probably jumping because of wear in the suspension links in the rear usually its the bottom push link. This seems to me more likely since you have such a wide setup. Or your shocks maybe going. You may want to check any of these professionally before you invest in a staggered setup because the problem will just simply remain. More rubber won't help.
I am sure the people on this thread would agree....
Hope this helps.


ps. Nice to see you here Lee

Most AMG rims from Sport edition cars do have staggered rims. It just seems funny that the tires where the same size. Those rims are designed to run staggered tires, but just realize you probably won't be able to rotate tires in the future. The tire sizes you're thinking of would create a greater radius/diameter in the rear. This may create a different look and will alter the circumference thus slightly altering the speedometer. Normally when going wider, you also would go lower profile.

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1997 E420

Just wondering, is this going on a w124 Coupe? Or another vehicle?

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Chirag (Charlie) Patel
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- 03 Mercedes S600 Sport TTV12
- 97 Acura NSX-T
- 99 BMW E36 M3 w/500+ HP
- 04 Lexus RX330
- 04 Dodge Dakota Quad 4x4 V8

4 Sale:
- 99 BMW M3 E36 Coup with Dinan SC, Upgraded to an RMS Stage 3 with Aftercooler, 12psi, and 500+hp @ flywheel.

Hi these wheels are on my car which is a W124 coupe.
I hope to get new rear tyres this weekend (If ive got any money left)Ive decided to go for 255/40/17 (rear) and stay with the 235/40/17 (front).Thanks for all the replies recieved so far Nick.

Well I don't know how you will get them to fit unless you got a wide body kit and no fenders. The widest I would go on a w124 is 225/45/17s. You really start asking for trouble if you go wider even with the fenders rolled.

Some Quick Math:
Stock Tires are 195/65/15 = 25.0"
205/60/15 = 24.7"
215/60/15 = 25.2"

for 16" wheels:
205/55/16 = 24.9"
225/50/16 = 24.9"

for 17" wheels:
225/45/17 = 25.0"
245/40/17 = 24.7"
255/40/17 = 25.0"

Now the problem being is yourfenders can't fit 255s in the back last I checked.

Or Maybe I am just missing something, and you got major fender work done, or something, but am I right here?

__________________
Chirag (Charlie) Patel
--------------------------------------------
- 03 Mercedes S600 Sport TTV12
- 97 Acura NSX-T
- 99 BMW E36 M3 w/500+ HP
- 04 Lexus RX330
- 04 Dodge Dakota Quad 4x4 V8

4 Sale:
- 99 BMW M3 E36 Coup with Dinan SC, Upgraded to an RMS Stage 3 with Aftercooler, 12psi, and 500+hp @ flywheel.

Unless you've made some major suspension and alignment mods, I would think staggered tires (larger in rear) would only hurt handling.
All street cars come from the factory with a ton of built in understeer, for safety reasons.
You'd just be exacerbating this condition by putting wider rear tires on the rear.
But, I think its generally done for looks, not to improve handling (like most mods).