Shopping for tires is no easy task if you don’t speak tire lingo. There are a lot of different sizes and styles out there, and not all of them are compatible with every vehicle. In fact, putting the wrong size tires on your vehicle can have detrimental — and even dangerous — effects. Still, you often see vehicles with large tires. Many people think these look good. And to be sure, they do have some benefits. But to know what tires are best for your vehicle, it’s important to understand how bigger tires affect your vehicle.
Let’s dive right in with some common questions regarding tire size and its effect on vehicles.
We’ll answer the following questions in this article:
- Do Bigger Tires Affect MPG?
- Do Bigger Tires Affect Braking?
- Do Bigger Tires Affect Towing Capacity?
- Do Bigger Tires Last Longer?
- Do Bigger Tires Affect Your Speedometer?
- Do Bigger Tires Ride Smoother?
- Will Putting Bigger Tires on Your Vehicle Void its Warranty?
- Do Bigger Tires Affect Turning Radius?
- What Are the Advantages of Bigger Tires?
- How do Bigger Wheels and Tires Affect Your Car’s Performance?
Do Bigger Tires Affect MPG?
“Do bigger tires affect MPG” is an extremely common question. In fact, it is so commonly asked that we wrote a full article about it. Click the highlighted link to see our full explanation.
However, if you’re looking for the long and short of it, the answer is yes: bigger tires will affect miles per gallon to varying degrees. Tires that are both bigger and wider negatively affect gas mileage by causing drag (from larger surface area) and making the engine work harder to move the heavier tires. They can also increase wind-resistance, which reduces gas mileage.
Most non-specialty vehicles come from the factory with tires sized for optimal fuel efficiency. This means that the “normal” tire size will give you the best possible miles per gallon under standard driving conditions. So, if you increase the size of those tires, you’ll be affecting fuel economy.
Sometimes this is barely noticeable, like if you get tires one or two sizes up. But if you go any larger than that, you’ll likely see a significant decrease in fuel economy since bigger tires are generally heavier and require more engine power to rotate once than the factory tires.
Do Bigger Tires Affect Braking?
Unless you upgrade your brakes along with your tire size, your braking will be negatively affected. This is because larger tires are heavier and produce more torque than brakes designed for factory tires are designed to handle.
The degradation of braking power is directly related to the increase in tire size. Let’s say you get tires that are 8% larger than the factory tires your vehicle came with. This will equate to an 8% decrease in braking efficiency. The increased weight of the larger tires will further decrease braking efficiency by a small percentage.
While you may not notice this difference in normal driving conditions, it could mean the difference between an accident and a near-miss. This is why it’s always good to upgrade your brakes if you get significantly larger tires. If you’re only increasing tire size minimally, you may be able to get away with the same brake pads since the loss of braking efficiency won’t be significant.
Do Bigger Tires Affect Towing Capacity?
Putting bigger tires on your vehicle can negatively affect towing capacity. Larger diameter tires roll slower than smaller tires, which means they have less torque. The torque lost to larger tires will decrease a vehicle’s towing capacity.
If you’re planning on towing anything that’s close to your vehicle’s maximum towing capacity, you should reconsider getting bigger tires. Not only do they make the vehicle less efficient, they also lower the towing capacity.
Do Bigger Tires Last Longer?
Bigger tires may or may not last longer than smaller tires — it’s hard to say. Bigger tires weigh more and require more force to move on turns, which can make your new tires wear out fast. However, they generally have more material and rotate at slower speeds, which can decrease wear.
However, the cost of larger tires is something to keep in mind here as well. Generally, bigger tires are expensive and can cost significantly more than smaller ones. This means that any potential savings you may get if (and it’s a big if) your bigger tires do last longer will likely be negated by the cost of replacing those tires. Thus, how often you get new tires matters here.
Do Bigger Tires Affect Your Speedometer?
Putting bigger tires on your car can cause inaccurate speedometer readings. Speedometers work, in part, by measuring the revolutions of your tires based on their circumference. Larger tires will show slower speeds than the car is actually going, since they rotate slower than smaller tires.
If you do get bigger tires for your vehicle, you may want to have the speedometer recalibrated to reflect the change so you can have accurate readings.
Do Bigger Tires Ride Smoother?
While bigger tires may improve handling, they don’t usually make for a smoother ride. But this has more to do with the sidewall, which tends to decrease in size on larger wheels, making for a bumpier ride. Larger sidewalls on tires provide more cushioning, which makes for a smoother ride.
The general rule of thumb about tire size and smoothness has more to do with wheel size. On cars, tires and wheels are two different things. You can increase the wheel size but not the tire size by changing the thickness of the sidewall. For larger wheels, the sidewall is decreased, which usually means that the material of the tire is stiffer. And stiffer material means a bumpier ride, and is more susceptible to forming a bulge or bubble in the tire sidewall.
This is why smaller wheels with thicker sidewalls are ideal if you want a smooth ride. That said, you can go up or down and inch in tire size on most vehicles and not notice much of a difference. It’s only when you make drastic changes in wheel and tire size that you’ll experience a big difference in ride smoothness. However, if you install big tires with big sidewalls (which will usually require a lift kit) you can enjoy a smooth ride with big tires.
Will Putting Bigger Tires on Your Vehicle Void its Warranty?
Putting larger tires on your vehicle may void aspects of its warranty, but this largely depends on the dealer. A small increase in tire size (3% or less) is generally considered within warranty specs, but any larger increase can (theoretically) increase wear on other parts of the vehicle.
In order for larger tires to void your warranty, the dealer must be able to prove that the larger tires have directly increased wear on the vehicle. If you’re not making a huge upgrade, this will be exceedingly difficult for them to prove. However, when you start getting into things like lift kits, leveling kits, and speedometer recalibration, things get a little more dicey. Most manufacturers consider all of the above enough to void certain aspects of your warranty. And it’s not only the warranty aspect to keep in mind here, there are also other additional costs associated with lifting your truck.
One thing is true: putting larger tires on your vehicle can never void your entire warranty. The effect larger tires have on your vehicle has nothing to do with your seatbelts, for instance. So if you had issues with your seatbelts, you would still be covered under that aspect of your warranty, even if you put monster truck tires on the car.
It’s always a good idea to talk to your local dealer before putting larger tires on your vehicle. If the first dealer you visit says it will void your warranty, try another one. You may be surprised to find that some dealerships are more lenient than others when it comes to warranty issues like these.
Do Bigger Tires Affect Turning Radius?
In general, the bigger the tires you have, the larger your turning radius will be. This is because larger tires require a longer distance to complete one full revolution, as compared to smaller tires. Bigger tires may also cause interference from the wheel wells, which can affect turning radius.
As you can probably guess having read this far, a modest increase in tire size will not drastically affect your turning radius. But the larger you go in tire size, the worse your turning radius will get. Maneuvering through tight spaces and making sharp turns will become more difficult as tire size increases.
That said, bigger tires provide more traction, which is important for off-road vehicles. There’s a happy medium between tire size and turn radius with off-road vehicles, but this depends on what kind of off-roading the vehicle does and whether a tight turn radius is important.
What Are the Advantages of Bigger Tires?
We’ve covered many disadvantages of bigger tires so far in this article. We’ve also mentioned an advantage or two in passing. But, it’s important to realize that there are definitely some pros to installing bigger tires on your vehicle, which we’ll go over briefly below.
Ground Clearance
One of the major benefits of bigger tires is increased ground clearance. If you’re not familiar, ground clearance is the distance between the bottom of the body of your car and the ground. With bigger tires, you can enjoy an increased ground clearance, which means reduced scraping on speed bumps, steep driveways, and ramps, not to mention the benefits if you do any off-roading.
Traction
As mentioned briefly above, bigger (and wider) tires allow for more traction. While this may not matter much for normal driving, those with muscle cars or off-road vehicles may consider upping their tire size a little bit for better traction.
Aesthetics
One major benefit of big tires is how they look. Many car and truck enthusiasts love the look of big wheels and big tires on vehicles. For some, this is enough of a reason to go for the upgrade, especially if the car or truck is mainly driven to car shows and not regularly used for normal driving.
How Do Bigger Wheels and Tires Affect Your Car’s Performance?
Significantly bigger wheels and tires will generally have a negative effect on breaking, accelerating, and general wear. They’ll also raise the vehicle’s height, which can raise its center of gravity and make it less aerodynamic. However, you’ll also enjoy better traction and increased ground clearance.
A modest increase in tire and wheel size will not likely have a noticeable effect on your car’s performance. But it’s important to keep in mind that the further away you get from the manufacturer’s factory wheel size, the more certain aspects of the vehicle’s performance will suffer.
In Conclusion
Vehicles are complex machines that are designed for optimum efficiency. Making a drastic change to something as seemingly trivial as tire size can have unforeseen consequences if you’re not careful. Slapping on new tires may seem like a good idea at first, but you should consider what effect the change will have on your vehicle.
You may need to get a leveling kit or a lift kit, depending on the size of tires you want. You’ll also want to recalibrate your speedometer to reflect the change of the tire radius, since bigger tires rotate slower than smaller ones, which can make for inaccurate readings.
All that said, if you’re only looking at a small increase in tire size, you probably won’t have to worry too much about these issues.
I hope this article has helped you determine whether bigger tires are right for you. Thanks for reading!