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Sidewall should be the widest part of the tire, That’s how we designed wheels at Land Rover.
Specific counter point: I am very glad for rentals in the UK to hit rims before tires. I don’t completely understand why, I suspect it’s an MOT thing, but we got very specific instructions to NOT damage the sidewalls of the tires in any way or we’d be on the hook for a full new set. I asked about the rims, and they said they didn’t care at all about the rims and DO NOT DAMAGE THE SIDEWALLS.
Which was great, because peeling out of Heathrow on the wrong side of the road with a 1.2l N.A. wheezer and the worst clutch I’ve ever dealt with of course meant I immediately hit a curb.
Large and bellicose curbs indeed. I was surprised when I moved out here a few decades ago. It’s not like there aren’t curbs where I’m from in New York City… there are. But they’re curb-height. Here, in southern California, they’re 50% higher on average and not only do they increase the chance of curbing your pretty alloy wheel, it’s almost certain that your passenger is going to scrape the muthafrakin’ hell out of the lower edge of the door when they open in to exit or enter the car.
This becomes easier to bear if you’re dailying a ‘survivor’ car that’s a couple decades old (or almost twice that in my case) but it still hurts.
So it’s not by leaving the sunroof open after losing the key fob then? Yeah, that seems less common than curbing the wheels.
(I hope you are at the point where you can laugh at that, Mercedes. If not, then I apologize greatly)
Maybe this is the real reason for the otherwise inexplicably long-lived trend of machine face black wheels.
It’s made worse by the recent trend to paint wheels in non-silver colors, as demonstrated by the last picture in the article. Scrapes on black-painted wheels look even more obvious.
Both my cars right now have black wheels and I hate it.
I agree, Jason. I’d happily take more sidewall. If the wheel can’t be so fancy, then the market would just have to compensate with more raised, colorful letter tire designs!
Which would be nice because none of those exist in 205/60R16 that I’ve found.
I hate it too, but I figured there must be an engineering or fuel economy related reason for the trend of tire to wheel ratio going from fat tire on narrow wheel in the 1980s to narrow tire on fat wheel for the last 15 years or so. IMO it’s not for aesthetics, as I hate the look and the functionality e.g. curbing.
I think it’s to fit bigger brakes and because most people seem to like the aesthetics or at least associate it with looking more expensive (it is, of course, but for the wrong reasons). Narrower helps aero, but the same diameter package with the bigger wheels tend to weigh more. The tires today aren’t narrower from the ’80s, but if you mean the stretched look, I think that’s dubious style. (I have that with my car to a minor extent, but it’s because I thought the stock wheels were 1/2″ wider than they were, so the aftermarket ones are that much wider and the tire ends up looking slightly stretched. I don’t care for it, but I also don’t want wider tires as the car sticks too well as it is even with HPAS.) The other part of bigger wheels is that “cars” have gotten so fat, tall, and blocky that they need large wheels to not look under-tired, which would counteract the intimidating intent of the grrr, I’m tough, angry-face styling.
It’s purely aesthetic once past big enough to clear the brakes – and no normie CUV has brakes anywhere near big enough to need an 18IN+ wheel. Few smaller ones even need 16IN, but 17s and 18s are rampant past the absolute pauper-spec base trims. Large wheels HURT fuel economy, which you can see with EVs where the optional larger wheels always take a noticeable toll on range. Not as obvious with ICE because the energy density of hydrocarbons is so much better that little differences don’t hurt as much, but they certainly cost an mpg or two. Plenty of tests out there that prove that. But a dirty secret of fuel economy testing and certification is that automakers don’t actually have to test/certify EVERY variant since the differences are relatively small.
They help tall, slab-sided vehicles look less tall and slab-sided is why designers love them. And people who don’t know any better think they look “cool”, even as they cost them a lot of money and ruin the ride. Just another dumb fashion thing in modern cars, like GRRRRR front ends, tiny windows and jacked up ride heights.
Eh, my cars are city cars…their wheels are marked up here and there from collective decades of street parking. Sure, I do my best to avoid it, and as needed sand down and touch up, but it’s not something to which I give much thought. Cars were built to be used in their environments – maintain well, but don’t obsess over perfection that can only really be obtained by not using them.
1000 times this. Why any part of the wheel should stick out beyond the tire sidewall is beyond me.
As a wise man once said it is a poor workman that blames his tools. I guess everyone does it once, though to date I haven’t, but if it happens frequently? Do it once shame on the designers do it twice shame on the driver.
I’ve done it twice in 40 years of driving and I don’t want to know how many miles. Happens. But if your wheels look like somebody took a grinder to them, that’s definitely a YOU problem. But the designers are certainly rigging the game with wagon wheels with stretched rubber bands on them. Sooo many cars have the rim of the wheel sticking out past the sidewall – it’s ridiculous. And totally fashion, not necessity.
I curbed the wheel on my Accord the first week at my new house, backing out of the driveway and mis-judging where the curb was. I really want to swap these 19s for some 17s with some sidewall.
Before I bought the 10th gen I was looking at the 11th gen and told the dealer I specifically wanted an EX. Why they said, we have a ton of Sports and look how good they look. Me: 20’s look good, but they’re too easy to curb, or bend, and tires cost more. Seems they can’t keep the EX in stock with the smaller wheels.
I was annoyed that my BMW wagon came with the free that year “Value Package” that included 17IN wheels – I would have been perfectly happy with the 16s, and had those for my snow tires. My 1-series has the base 16s and they look perfectly fine. Tires are cheaper too. Bigger than that is ridiculous.