16" or 17" Wheels

Busdriver

Busdriver

Member
I'm looking for opinions from users of both. Background: I'm moving from NC to OH. The roads are probably going to be worse (although I'm
starting to wonder).. When I found the car, it still had the original 17" Hankook NRF. Since I obviously will need to switch to an all season, I am looking for
the best size for an all season ride, and also handling performance. Right now the car, IMHO, feels top heavy when pushed through corners/curves.
I'm going to try and stay with an EV tire.
I realize I am starting a Lite Beer Commercial.
 
I drive 17" summer wheels and 16" winter wheels. I'd guess the 16" wheel is probably going to provide more cushion since the sidewall is wider on 16". I also think the wheels themselves are going to be the most important factor. 17" are likely to be heavier, but it all depends on the specific wheel design. There's also the amount of drag from the openings in the wheels to consider.
 
Puppethead said:
There's also the amount of drag from the openings in the wheels to consider.
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I agree and have an example of this. I had a 2018 Tesla Model 3 Performance that came with 20" wheels, which had a spoke design with smaller openings. The factory wheels came with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S summer only tires. I then purchased a set of Titan7 forged wheels. The wheels were 18" in size and weighed basically 10 lbs less per wheel, for a total decrease in weight of almost 40 lbs. However, the design of the Titan7 forged wheels was an open "Y" spoke design and I had Michelin Cross Climate tires installed. I was hoping for a zero or a small decrease in range. What I expereinced was an almost 11% reduction in range. So, the decrease in weight was not enough to overcome the extra drag of the Michelin Cross Climate tires and the open spoke design. Just before selling the car, I put the factory wheels/tires back on and the range went back up.

For the 2023 Mini Cooper SE, I took off the Powerspoke wheels with the Hankooks (stored safely in the garage) and bought a cheapy set of wheels from TireRack in the same size (could not find any used factory wheels for sale near me) . I then had Continental DWS06+ tires installed and I'm currently observing a slight decrease in range (maybe 3%). The decrease was worth it as I like the Continental DWS06+ tires much, much more than the Hankooks that came with the car.
 
Busdriver said:
I'm looking for opinions from users of both. Background: I'm moving from NC to OH. The roads are probably going to be worse (although I'm
starting to wonder).. When I found the car, it still had the original 17" Hankook NRF. Since I obviously will need to switch to an all season, I am looking for
the best size for an all season ride, and also handling performance. Right now the car, IMHO, feels top heavy when pushed through corners/curves.
I'm going to try and stay with an EV tire.
I realize I am starting a Lite Beer Commercial.
Click to expand...
My Iconic-trim 2021 MINI Cooper SE (built in 2020) came with the SE's unique 17" MINI Power Spoke wheels and Hankook summer performance tires. Even before my MINI was delivered (after a 51-week wait), I was worried about surrendering any yellow paint from the Power Spoke wheels to an undeserving curb.

So I found some nice, used 16" MINI Loop Spoke wheels already wearing slightly used Hankook summer performance tires. The Power Spokes now come out of the basement and onto my MINI only one or two days a year for Drive Electric Week events. Sadly, those 17" tires with less than 1,000 miles of wear will be out-of-date all too soon.

After the swap, I was immediately happier with the more comfortable ride provided by the taller sidewalls of the 16" tires. The streets of my city are quite potholed, so improved comfort was important. I may have sacrificed a bit of cornering grip with the smaller/narrower tires, but I never corner fast enough to break them free, so it was a good tradeoff IMO.

I later purchased another set of used Loop Spoke wheels for my winter tires. Inexplicably, my wife does not believe 3 sets of wheels/tires for a single car makes sense!
 
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I really don't see the problem with three sets of wheels:). Thanks for doing the test Jkoya. I don't have the Power Spoke Wheels. I believe they are called the Roulette, the 10 spoke. When I first saw the car, I thought it was a lot of potential aerodynamic drag with all the openings, additionally they are heavy wheels. I didn't think too much about it until this discussion. (Remember the original Honda Insight with the partially covered rear wheels). OTOH, this is not exactly an aerodynamically designed platform, as a Tesla. I'm thinking it may not make that big of difference, although I might wrong on that one. Wouldn't you like to see a wind tunnel test? I don't want to decrease the range any more than is when I start making changes.
 
Busdriver said:
OTOH, this is not exactly an aerodynamically designed platform, as a Tesla. I'm thinking it may not make that big of difference, although I might wrong on that one.
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I'm inclined to think the wheel drag is a bigger factor for the less aerodynamic MINI, due to being farther from optimal airflow. But I don't have data to back that up. And to be honest, the lighter weight of the F56 SE is a big plus for range efficiency.
 
I would say wheel drag is somewhat a contributing factor but mostly mitigated with the LCI2 front bumper aero vents. The real difficulty measuring the 16s vs 17s is that 16s has a 195mm width and the 17s are generally 205mm...wider tires tend to have increased rolling resistance if everything else is the same (compound, tread pattern, etc).

This generally a non-issue if you have a winter set and a summer set. My winter RFT setup is anywhere from 1.5mi/kWh to 4mi/kWh, and my summer non-RFT setup is 4mi/kWh to 5.6mi/kWh.
 
I don't think I knew about the bumper aero vents. That's why I like asking questions here. In addition to absorbing
poor pavement, the narrower 16" is what I was thinking about. Honestly not sure why they went with a wide tire.
The original Honda Insight was the car I really wanted, but at the time was unaffordable to me. I know the forum
members were running really narrow tires with really high PSI.
I'm not seeing having two sets of tires. I just need to decide on an all season tire size
 
Busdriver said:
I don't think I knew about the bumper aero vents. That's why I like asking questions here. In addition to absorbing
poor pavement, the narrower 16" is what I was thinking about. Honestly not sure why they went with a wide tire.
The original Honda Insight was the car I really wanted, but at the time was unaffordable to me. I know the forum
members were running really narrow tires with really high PSI.
I'm not seeing having two sets of tires. I just need to decide on an all season tire size
Click to expand...
I enjoyed driving my 2 gen-1 Insights from 2000 to 2019 (hence my InsideEVs' moniker). When I got the first one a journalist and photographer flew from NYC to see my car and take my picture (they exaggerated it's fuel efficiency--it was tough for me to exceed 85 mpg).

That was then. After 20 years of concentration on hypermiling, I'm having a lot more fun in my MINI Cooper SE. It doesn't bother me that a full charge doesn't take me as far as 2 gallons of gas in the Insight's 10-gallon tank.

1769056230992.webp
 
My roommate back in the day had a 1st gen insight. we loved that car. It took many miles, but we got it up to 108 mph. lol stupid kids doing stupid things to test the limits.

He did a couple local autox events with it -- they didn't know where to class the car at the time per SCCA rules. it wasn't competitive but it was fun to watch it go around while you heard next to nothing.

It met it's demise from a pickup truck unfortunately. no injuries. He moved on to a diesel vw golf.

He ran the high psi on the tire as well and was always trying to get the hypermiles in for fun and data collection (nerd).

I don't have personal hands on experience with 'ev' specific tires. But I can surely account for differences in tire compounds, tread design, etc causing mileage changes.

hard/skinny = better mileage, less traction.
soft/fat = better grip, less mileage,
soft/skinny = best in snow

all season tires are mid in all seasons. Not dedicated to anything, but good enough in all of it to get by.

I always ran 2 sets on my cars, winter and summer. summer were bigger wider, winter were a rim size or 2 down and skinnier.
 
brianc35 said:
My roommate back in the day had a 1st gen insight. we loved that car. It took many miles, but we got it up to 108 mph. lol stupid kids doing stupid things to test the limits.

He did a couple local autox events with it -- they didn't know where to class the car at the time per SCCA rules. it wasn't competitive but it was fun to watch it go around while you heard next to nothing.

It met it's demise from a pickup truck unfortunately. no injuries. He moved on to a diesel vw golf.

He ran the high psi on the tire as well and was always trying to get the hypermiles in for fun and data collection (nerd).

I don't have personal hands on experience with 'ev' specific tires. But I can surely account for differences in tire compounds, tread design, etc causing mileage changes.

hard/skinny = better mileage, less traction.
soft/fat = better grip, less mileage,
soft/skinny = best in snow

all season tires are mid in all seasons. Not dedicated to anything, but good enough in all of it to get by.

I always ran 2 sets on my cars, winter and summer. summer were bigger wider, winter were a rim size or 2 down and skinnier.
Click to expand...
I always stuck with the OEM Bridgestone tires that Honda specified for the gen-1 Insight (overinflated, of course). Back then, there were no alternative EV-specific tires.

Interesting is MINI's choice of specific Goodyear, Pirelli, and Hankook summer performance tires for the MINI Cooper SE, a car that offers a meager 110/114-mile EPA range. I believe that everyone on the InsideEVs' forum who has tried other tires on their SE has experienced reduced range. Even all-season tires that one would expect to have harder rubber than the OEM summer performance tires can't match the range the OEM tires provide. There may now be EV tires that could out-range the OEMs, but no one on the forum has reported they've tried that option.
 
Many of the OEM tires for BMW * spec have some custom compounds and tension patterns (alters contact patch) that you can't get from the same aftermarket version like the Michelin Pilot Sports varieties.

It's really up to the driver to decide the trade-offs between max range and driving around like a hooligan.
 
This seems like a good time to repost this graphic, I believe it's the tire pressure plate from the UK F56 Electric, it's certainly more detailed than the US plate. I try to run at the ECO pressure, but I'm having a hard time keeping my pressures correct in the current winter double-digit negative ºF temperatures.


1769120180602.webp
 
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