How bad is it to run staggered wheels?

[dichiee]

I was searching if anyone here is doing it but what I found is about being rice hehe. I've been in the VW/Audi scene for a while and there's a lot of good looking cars with this setup and I'm wondering how bad will it be performance wise on the MS3? I don't do track, drag or any of those just driving with sometimes quick launching with friends or what not.

something like this?
http://www.uploadftw.com/0707/IMG_8387-Edit-2resize.jpg

[SwampAss]

I think it's kinda silly on a FWD car. The Audi pictured above is probably AWD.
I don't know if anyone has done it yet with an MS3.

[ghetto waggon]

I don't think there is any downfall to it. Sure it might be silly or stupid to those who criticize you, but who gives a shit.

As you said, many of the FWD VW drivers do it, and I am aware of others like the 3.5 altima, etc.

[dcomiskey]

It's lame on VWs as well. One of the reasons you DON'T want to do it on a FWD car is that you are inducing MORE understeer in the car. Similar to if you stiffen up the front end. FWD come from the factory designed to understeer. Smaller wheels in the front as opposed to the back offer an unbalance of grip. Does it look cool? I guess. But handling-wise, it's not a wise thing to do. And it makes it that much more difficult to rotate tires, if you really want to nit pick.

[fourthmeal]

A lot of cars doing this (in Japan at least) will compensate for the change in handling inherent in a staggered setup by increasing the rear tires' pressure to maximum, or maybe a bit above. This works to increase rotation and reduce understeer, but it has a lot of drawbacks (notably, the tire no longer absorbs bumps properly, bending wheels quite easily.)

[crashkelly]

not a big fan...you will get ragged on a lot for it...It looks nice but it affects handling and is essentially as silly as putting big drags on the rear wheels even though your car is FWD...and yes I have totally seen dummies with Drag radials on the the rears of the fwd cars...

[Ronic87]

I was in the VW scene also and ran staggered wheels on my golf. I had 18x8.5 and 18x10 and honestly it really didnt affect my handling that much at all. Yeah the rotating tires thing is kindve annoying but i got passed it and if your not doing auto-x or constant drag racing and you just want looks i would do it.

[mountjonas]

I think it's kinda silly on a FWD car. The Audi pictured above is probably AWD.
I don't know if anyone has done it yet with an MS3.

unless he's running the same width, just different offsets, wouldn't that be supremely bad for awd?

[Sveivo]

I was in the VW scene also and ran staggered wheels on my golf. I had 18x8.5 and 18x10 and honestly it really didnt affect my handling that much at all. Yeah the rotating tires thing is kindve annoying but i got passed it and if your not doing auto-x or constant drag racing and you just want looks i would do it.

So how did you rotate the tires? You didn't, right?

[chuyler1]

I'd rather be able to rotate the tires. Sorry bud. Unless you at least have a body kit to warrant this, I'd say it will look silly.

[silversurfer3]

heres my friend ms3 with staggered wheels http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123673787

[Sveivo]

heres my friend ms3 with staggered wheels http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123673787

You can't really tell from the pics (dunno)

[Rotus8]

If the diameters are different front to back, it will probably confuse your traction control and ABS.

[Bufalo]

Staggered wheels on a front-drive car is retarded. Doesn't look good, doesn't help anything, just seems like a complete waste of time, hassle, and money. Rear-drive cars generally have different body proportions that will make staggered wheels look correct, a front-drive compact hatchback does NOT have a body that would make it look good at all...

[Ronic87]

No i didnt rotate my tires ever and i didnt really mind it, i only ran the wheels for like 4 months out of the year anyway. But i understand people who dont like the idea of staggered on a FWD, its just personal opinion and taste. Some like it, some dont, it was like this on VWvortex forums too. I never minded it though, i loved the look and if you do too then i would say do it. Because like i said i really didnt feel much of a performance in handling difference. You could also get that staggered look by just get the same width wheels with different offsets in the rear.

[Young Roids]

It's lame on VWs as well. One of the reasons you DON'T want to do it on a FWD car is that you are inducing MORE understeer in the car. Similar to if you stiffen up the front end. FWD come from the factory designed to understeer. Smaller wheels in the front as opposed to the back offer an unbalance of grip. Does it look cool? I guess. But handling-wise, it's not a wise thing to do. And it makes it that much more difficult to rotate tires, if you really want to nit pick.

Yea you really want to have deepdish fronts and have skinny rears with a fwd car. Now that would be kinda cool looking for your ms3 have some 265s in front with stock 215s in the rear and people wouldn't think you are stupid for having large rears on a fwd.

[boosted3]

What is it about Audi's that make them so nice looking?
That has to be the nicest hatch I've ever seen.


It's like the whole care was designed around those wheels/wheel-wells.

[Sveivo]

What is it about Audi's that make them so nice looking?
That has to be the nicest hatch I've ever seen.


It's like the whole care was designed around those wheels/wheel-wells.

It's a body kit, isn't it?

[Ronic87]

Yeah its a reiger body kit and the car is dumped on some coils. But it still looks sick. People have to stop caring so much about handling in a FWD car though, because no matter what its still a FWD which isnt ideal for any type of handling anyway. So why not just make the car look badass with some big dish in the back.

[justhavnfun]

never mind the tires. the rest of the car looks ragged! and what the hell did he hit on the front bumper?! whats with the junk yard hood?! leave the carbon fiber hood look to video games.

[Sveivo]

Well, at least it's looking better than 99.9% of body kits out there.

[fourthmeal]

Money spent lookingbadass vs. money spent towards making your car badass...That's my issue. BTW, if you play your cards right, you could make a staggered setup handle ideally.

In order to do this, you need to use the same width tires all around, but feel free to run a slightly wider tire. By stretching the rears slightly to match the wider tire, the contact patch will get a tiny bit weaker, which should enable the car to rotate better. A bit more air pressure (2-3psi) on the rears will help here too. At any rate, the result would be the staggered setup you were talking about, but a very capable, tuned-in (and maybe a bit twitchy) setup.

[dcomiskey]

Yea you really want to have deepdish fronts and have skinny rears with a fwd car. Now that would be kinda cool looking for your ms3 have some 265s in front with stock 215s in the rear and people wouldn't think you are stupid for having large rears on a fwd.


What's your point? The fact of the matter is having a staggered setup on a FWD isn't a good idea. I never said put wider on front. That would look retarded. I was explaining the effects of handling on your FWD car if you decided to put larger wheels in the rear.

Bottom line is that it's not wise to do it.

[ghetto waggon]

Other than the fact it is not practical, I see most of your arguments out the window. The recurring 'retarded' explanation carries no weight.

There's plenty of cars with differing body lines where it looks and fits normally.

Sure there is an increased cost due to tire wear, and hindrence on racing performance but I still see no reason why it can't be done for looks!

Nothing more than personal opinion!

[knowledge007]

heres my friend ms3 with staggered wheels http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123673787

Um...those don't look staggered to me.

[Ronic87]

This is my car from back a few summers ago.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y192/veedubkid/DUB%20STUFF/DSCN0389.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y192/veedubkid/DUB%20STUFF/DSCN0393.jpg

[dcomiskey]

Other than the fact it is not practical, I see most of your arguments out the window. The recurring 'retarded' explanation carries no weight.

There's plenty of cars with differing body lines where it looks and fits normally.

Sure there is an increased cost due to tire wear, and hindrence on racing performance but I still see no reason why it can't be done for looks!

Nothing more than personal opinion!

Never said it can't be some simply for looks. But, to me, the "look" isn't worth screwing up the handling of my car. The car loves to understeer enough as it is, I don't know why anyone would want to make it worse.

[Young Roids]

It don't look retarded to me it looks like real performance.

[mspro19]

What if you were to go with a wheel like AXIS? They make wheels for FWD cars to run Staggered. It gives the illusion of staggered wheels on a FWD car but really is the same all the way around. Rotation wise I would just leave the back ones on and burn through the front ones. You'll go through 2 front sets before you have to change the back ones. http://www.axiswheels.com I was actually looking at the Widetrack 18x8s....

[fourthmeal]

What if you were to go with a wheel like AXIS? They make wheels for FWD cars to run Staggered. It gives the illusion of staggered wheels on a FWD car but really is the same all the way around. Rotation wise I would just leave the back ones on and burn through the front ones. You'll go through 2 front sets before you have to change the back ones. http://www.axiswheels.com I was actually looking at the Widetrack 18x8s....

All good there, but don't forget you'll likely get very tired of the "chop-chop-chop-chop" that goes on in the back end as those tires wear in the rear. The non-drive tires of a FWD car often feather and cup, and start turning into 100-sided polygons instead of round. Without rotation, you'll end up exacerbating this phenomenon.

One solution (despite some serious effort involved), is to dismount the tires off the rims, and remount the tires on the opposite rims. Doing this will "rotate" the tires, but keep the stagger, at the expense of inconvienence. One major advantage, though, is that you can inspect the innards of the tires, and check for small leaks and other problems here at the same time.

[Bufalo]

My M3 had staggered wheels (that was a BMW, btw) from the factory, and honestly, I wanted to go WIDER in the front so that they matched all the way around. I just cannot understand the idea that staggered wheels on a front-drive car "looks good." It doesn't. I give up.

[dcomiskey]

My M3 had staggered wheels (that was a BMW, btw) from the factory, and honestly, I wanted to go WIDER in the front so that they matched all the way around. I just cannot understand the idea that staggered wheels on a front-drive car "looks good." It doesn't. I give up.


I'm pretty sure that was BMW's "way" of building in more understeer in the M3 (most manufacturers do that to reduce threat of understeer which normally results in a more sever accident if you lose control). They're all like that. But everything I've read says to put the same size fronts as the rear and you will remove that tendency.

[Bufalo]

I'm pretty sure that was BMW's "way" of building in more understeer in the M3.


That's absolutely correct.

[:: Gusto ::]

do tha staggered wheels set-up man...
dont listen to what they are saying.. yeah obviously its goin to affect your handling.. your goin ot have more contact area in tha rear...


there is a guy on another mazda3 baord that has a staggered set up w/ 19" rims.. tis loooks sick!

im planning on doing it, if i can get a nice set of wide rims.. But u have to get soemthign w/ a high offset to make it work.

im looking @ a 17x8 & 17x10 set up now... hrmm that would look good.. heheaheh

like tha cars on Dubaudi.com hehhaeeh

http://dubaudi.com/images/jj/pop/slide_04.jpg
http://dubaudi.com/images/geoff/pop/slide_06.jpg
http://dubaudi.com/images/johnN/pop/slide_03.jpg


its all about style bro...