Are alloy wheels a performance upgrade

thexav

Pro Tuner
Staff member
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Car
2002 Clio 172
Most cars come with alloy wheels and lot of people upgrade to larger rims.

Are these just cosmetic mods or do larger wheels and fatter tyres give a performance gain?

I've always understood that a lot of unsprung weight is a bad thing, surely adding larger alloys will hinder perfrormance.
 
In a way, yes.

Standard wheels are often designed to reduce road noise and are very heavy. Putting a set of lighter wheels on helps with overall weight saving and provides more responsive steering.
 
Only if the new set of wheels AND tyres are lighter than the orignals.

Very few people, if any, replace their wheels and tyres with a set of the same size. Therefore the chances are that there will be no weight saving and more likely a weight gain. Performance will, obviously, suffer.
 
Only if the new set of wheels AND tyres are lighter than the orignals.

Very few people, if any, replace their wheels and tyres with a set of the same size. Therefore the chances are that there will be no weight saving and more likely a weight gain. Performance will, obviously, suffer.

Indeed. I few people I know use Compomotives for example or wheels an inch smaller and there choice of tyre and are still several Kg's lighter then stock wheels with the same tyre.
 
As O-G says only if the tyre and wheel package is lighter.
Heavier takes longer to spin up and slower to slow down .A bit like a light flywheel vs a stock heavy one.
 

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