215 Front 225 Rear??

[Basskika]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and new to clio ownership

I've just noticed that the current tyre setup is 215 front 225 rear - is this recommended? Would it not be preferable to have the wider tyre on the front axle?

Thanks for your help and look forward to being part of the community

 

[Fernandez]

should be the same all round, however Audi run a wider tyre on the front of the RS3 so they may be some benefits to traction

 

[ken182]

that will produce a lot of understeer in a FWD car

 

[maccy]

I agree

 

[-Eddie-]

Was thinking the same. Surely if you're going to put 225 on one axle and 215 on the other the 225s should be on the front. Best just to run the same profile all round.

 

[Paddy_R]

Should be 215/45R17 all around as standard. I run 225/45R17 all around and while it does give a small grip advantage I'm mainly doing it for the looks (and the 225 tyres were cheaper as it's a more common size).

 

[boorek]

If you put 225 on front and 215 on rear you won't pass M.O.T. that's what told me when I was changing mine.

 

[Fernandez]

If you put 225 on front and 215 on rear you won't pass M.O.T. that's what told me when I was changing mine.

Told you wrong. You can have staggered widths providing the tyres on each axle are the same. Audi had problems with getting traction down on the RS3 they simply cured this by running a wider profile on the front.

Plus how would any supercar pass an Mot with massive rears compared to the front.

 

[Fernandez]

"The Audi RS 3 Sportback has 19-inch wheels. The front tires are size 235/35, whereas the tires at the rear are 10 millimeters (0.39 in) narrower to further enhance handling."

http://www.audiworld.com/news/11/audi-rs3/

 

[boorek]

they told me if I'll put wider tyres on rear it will be OK...

 

[Leethelips]

I have ran wider tires on the back before ( rwd car though and had wider rims on the back) which improved handling . You can come to a limit though where the tire is physically too wide for the rim and upsets the handling badly . Sometimes it is better to run the sizes that the manufacture recommend. Saying that I have gone down fro 45's to 40's but that was due to price

 

[ken182]

Wider tyres on the back of a light fwd car certainly won't improve handling

 

[Basskika]

Thanks to all for your replies.. General consensus seems to be to run same tyres all round however if running different size tyres front and rear wider tyres should be on front axle to reduce understear. That is the way I have always understood it and thought it strange that the previous owner had the 225s on the rear