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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 10:25 AM
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Default Here's a newbie question

When buying wheels and tires why get an inch bigger in the back??

I see alot of people have 17'sFront/18'sRear or 18'sF/19'sR, but the I see some people have the same size all the way around.

Also why get staggered wheels? What does that do?

Pro's?? Cons???

I'd love to hear everyone's input
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 10:35 AM
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Vette came standard with 17's in front and 18's in back. Seems most people when putting on aftermarket rims seem to go with 18's in front and 19's in back just because they look better. You will find some that have the same dimension rims all the way around, but you have to have different tire sizes between front and back because the car is looking for about a 1" difference in overall diameter. If you don't give it that, you are asking for a world of problems with the Active Handling/Traction Control because it will always thing the rear tires are slipping.
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 10:39 AM
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I heard something along the lines that so the vette will not fall into the truck grooves on the road (I'm still a vette noob so I am not sure).
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 10:58 AM
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Originally Posted by Ruz
Vette came standard with 17's in front and 18's in back. Seems most people when putting on aftermarket rims seem to go with 18's in front and 19's in back just because they look better. You will find some that have the same dimension rims all the way around, but you have to have different tire sizes between front and back because the car is looking for about a 1" difference in overall diameter. If you don't give it that, you are asking for a world of problems with the Active Handling/Traction Control because it will always thing the rear tires are slipping.
This is correct.

BTW, it was done entirely for looks, books say so. Although they went to smaller tires than the C4 to reduce air drag, but they said the tires were designed to give better traction, except in snow. Snow performance was so much worse than the C4, that they had Goodyear design snow tires for it.
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 11:36 AM
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Do yourself a favor and DON"T change diameter sizes between front and back. I bought my 02 last year from a guy who put 275/35 18 all around on 18" rims. I'm having all kind of trouble with the Traction Control. I'm now shopping for four tires to mount on my 18" rims with the 1" size difference from front to back.
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 11:45 AM
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Originally Posted by tom grance
Do yourself a favor and DON"T change diameter sizes between front and back. I bought my 02 last year from a guy who put 275/35 18 all around on 18" rims. I'm having all kind of trouble with the Traction Control. I'm now shopping for four tires to mount on my 18" rims with the 1" size difference from front to back.
Doesnt everybody and their mother go with the difference in diameter size from front to back???

Maybe you are just having an isolated incident
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 12:03 PM
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Originally Posted by tom grance
Do yourself a favor and DON"T change diameter sizes between front and back. I bought my 02 last year from a guy who put 275/35 18 all around on 18" rims. I'm having all kind of trouble with the Traction Control. I'm now shopping for four tires to mount on my 18" rims with the 1" size difference from front to back.
18's all around here...no problemo
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 01:32 PM
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Originally Posted by Ruz
Vette came standard with 17's in front and 18's in back. Seems most people when putting on aftermarket rims seem to go with 18's in front and 19's in back just because they look better. You will find some that have the same dimension rims all the way around, but you have to have different tire sizes between front and back because the car is looking for about a 1" difference in overall diameter. If you don't give it that, you are asking for a world of problems with the Active Handling/Traction Control because it will always thing the rear tires are slipping.
and very well put.
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 08:56 PM
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Originally Posted by Ruz
Vette came standard with 17's in front and 18's in back. Seems most people when putting on aftermarket rims seem to go with 18's in front and 19's in back just because they look better. You will find some that have the same dimension rims all the way around, but you have to have different tire sizes between front and back because the car is looking for about a 1" difference in overall diameter. If you don't give it that, you are asking for a world of problems with the Active Handling/Traction Control because it will always thing the rear tires are slipping.
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 09:15 PM
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Originally Posted by tom grance
Do yourself a favor and DON"T change diameter sizes between front and back. I bought my 02 last year from a guy who put 275/35 18 all around on 18" rims. I'm having all kind of trouble with the Traction Control. I'm now shopping for four tires to mount on my 18" rims with the 1" size difference from front to back.
Maybe he meant the tires were the same 275/35 front and back?
Dont think it would be the 18" rim all round being the problem.
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Old Feb 7, 2007 | 11:30 PM
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The problem is the same size tires and rims all around. The computer is trying to see the front turning faster than the back. On my vette its not.
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Old Feb 8, 2007 | 02:18 AM
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You can put just about any size wheel you want to within reason without computer issues. The challenge is to find a tire that replicates the rolling circumference of the stock wheel/tire set up.

Tire Rack has all the tire specs available that will give you the information you will need to compensate for "plus one" and "plus two" applications.
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Old Feb 8, 2007 | 06:19 AM
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Originally Posted by tom grance
The problem is the same size tires and rims all around. The computer is trying to see the front turning faster than the back. On my vette its not.

I understand what you are saying now. I have 18"s all the way around with no problems, BUT the front are 275's and the back are 305's.
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Old Feb 8, 2007 | 10:06 AM
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Bingo!
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Old Feb 8, 2007 | 11:26 AM
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My new 03 came with the 17 in front and the 18 in the rear.
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