why? offset please tell me

[chiglee]

hi, i have bought 205 40 17 all round
i now know this is wrong but can anyone please tell why
i have been using these tyres for 3 weeks and have had no issues (although the steering does feel a little lumpy from time to time)

thank you, lee...  s:( s:(

[Jrichards20]

Are you referring to the stagger? From what i understand, as the car is mid engined and rear will drive, it is very prone to the back kicking out, especially in the wet. You will find other lightweight, mig engined RWD cars the same. Like the Lotus elise has a stagger. It is to premote a bit more understeer in the car so you dont end up in a hedge.

[dj2k21]

In my experience I don't think I've ever come accross a single rear wheel drive car no matter where the engine is located that doesn't have staggered tyres. To be truthful if you just potter about round town and go on little roof down trips you probably won't ever push the car hard enough to notice but if you do enjoy spirited driving then you may end up being caught out because the mr2 acts like a pendulum when the back end goes it just snaps away

[AndyM]

It's not about promoting understeer, it's about balancing the grip and handling while maintaining light, responsive steering feel.

With a front wheel drive car the weight, steering and power delivery is all coming from the front end. This means the car is effectively being pulled along and all the meaningful weight is at the front. When braking or turning the car is front limited (which turns into understeer) and the back of the car basically just hangs around doing it's own thing. As it's comparatively light it doesn't need a lot of rear grip (in theory FF cars could be run with a reverse stagger but manufacturers tend to just stick the same tyres all round as it makes it easy/cheap to source wheels and tyres (and it means you can rotate them front to rear).

With a RWD car things are a bit different. The power delivery is coming from the rear (and with MR the bulk of the weight is also rearward) so the car is being pushed, as such pretty much all time the back wants to go past the front. To stop all this happening too easily, and to allow the driver to put more power down, more rubber is added (wider tyres). However, if you then put that same wide rubber on the front you would end up with heavy and sluggish steering response. By putting smaller tyres on the front you bring back a lightness to the steering and better feel for the driver. It's all a balance though as making the front tyres too small will reduce the front grip too much and cause understeer.

As Danny says, pretty much every performance rear wheel drive car uses stagger (Ferrari, Porsche, etc... not just lightweight ones like the Elise) as it is fundamentally the best way to set these types of cars up for a balance of power, grip and feel.

Some people will argue and say 'I don't run stagger and I've never had the back snap on me' but the reality is that they simply haven't taken the car close enough to it's grip limit to experience it. This isn't really the point though as, more importantly in my opinion, on a pure physics/engineering level they aren't getting the best handling and feel from their car.

[theredone]

In my experience I don't think I've ever come accross a single rear wheel drive car no matter where the engine is located that doesn't have staggered tyres......

did you mean to say that ? what experience do you have ?   s:mrgreen: :mrgreen: s:mrgreen:  

I passed my test in 1962.   s8) s8)  since then most of my cars have been rear wheel drives. none of them had staggered tyres, not even the many Hillman imps I`ve had.

gog.

[Wabbitkilla]

Modern Mx5's don't stagger and Gt86 aren't staggered either but they're front engined and come like that from the factory. However every mid engined car I have come across is staggered wider at the back from factory. As is mentioned the pendulum effect is more prevalent in mid engined and rear engined cars. That's the way it's meant to be, why mess with your safety and other people's lives?

So if you're dawdling around then you will likely survive, but if you drive this car the way it'seant to be (it IS a sports car) then stick with stagger.

[Tomo70]

Would I also be correct in saying that insurance may decline paying out in the even of an accident. Given the modification is not in keeping with manufacturers specification.

[MattPerformance]

Would I also be correct in saying that insurance may decline paying out in the even of an accident. Given the modification is not in keeping with manufacturers specification.

Given that the car came with 205 tyres on the back all you have effectively done is to increase the size of the tyres on the front (obviously, the insurance company will need t know about the non-standard alloys regardless).

As for the  rest of the stagger debate, always remember one thing: drivers cause cars to go sideways, not tyres!  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

[dj2k21]

In my experience I don't think I've ever come accross a single rear wheel drive car no matter where the engine is located that doesn't have staggered tyres......

did you mean to say that ? what experience do you have ?   s:mrgreen: :mrgreen: s:mrgreen:  

I passed my test in 1962.   s8) s8)  since then most of my cars have been rear wheel drives. none of them had staggered tyres, not even the many Hillman imps I`ve had.

gog.

Yeah absolutly I meant that mate  s:) s:)  I said every rwd I've ever come accross to which I only have experience of the following cars I've owned.

Bmw e36
Bmw e36 convertible
Bmw e39
Mr2
Mercedes clk
Skyline r33 gtr
Honda S2000
Porsche boxster (borrowed)

All of which have been staggered set up  s:) s:)

[Sepp]

I've had non stagger and it is snappier and be really careful in the wet. If you are not really competent on the edge then go stagger - best if you don't go to the edge at all  s:) s:)

[theredone]

Yeah absolutly I meant that mate  s:) s:)  I said every rwd I've ever come accross to which I only have experience of the following cars I've owned.

Bmw e36
Bmw e36 convertible
Bmw e39
Mr2
Mercedes clk
Skyline r33 gtr
Honda S2000
Porsche boxster (borrowed)

All of which have been staggered set up  s:) s:)

I can only bow to your experience which has obviously been much more expensively acquired than mine.   s:bowdown: :bowdown: s:bowdown:    s:) s:)    s:) s:)

[carolineasb]

I can categorically say that my spin was caused by tyres and NOT me as the driver!  I have been driving for 33 years (OMG!!) and have had loads of "hairy" moments in cars where I just might have been really pushing them to the limit but the only time I have actually spun with the rear doing the pendulum effect and turning 180 degrees was in Oldie with wrong tyres on the rear and I was definitely not pushing her.  

I have never been so glad that no-one was behind or next to Oldie!

[tommyzoom99]

In my experience I don't think I've ever come accross a single rear wheel drive car no matter where the engine is located that doesn't have staggered tyres......

did you mean to say that ? what experience do you have ?   s:mrgreen: :mrgreen: s:mrgreen:  

I passed my test in 1962.   s8) s8)  since then most of my cars have been rear wheel drives. none of them had staggered tyres, not even the many Hillman imps I`ve had.

gog.

Yeah absolutly I meant that mate  s:) s:)  I said every rwd I've ever come accross to which I only have experience of the following cars I've owned.

Bmw e36
Bmw e36 convertible
Bmw e39
Mr2
Mercedes clk
Skyline r33 gtr
Honda S2000
Porsche boxster (borrowed)

All of which have been staggered set up  s:) s:)

I don't mean to be funny but a R33 GTR is 4WD and they don't run staggered set ups these cars and it would explode the gearbox if you did, you can get RWD Skylines but they aint GTRs you might of owned a R33 GTT

although i agree lots of RWD cars come with staggered set ups but mainly its of the MR layout

cheers tommy

cheers

[dj2k21]

Hi tommy, the r33 gtr is a permanent rwd car, if you take a look it's a rwd gearbox too however they have output shafts on them for the front wheels and the front wheels are chain driven and activated using a pump system in the boot. One of the most common conversions to do on a gtr is either to add a switch to the fuse for the pump or just simply remove the fuse altogether. mine was used for drifting so needed to be rwd. And was staggered and the 2 or 3 others both r32 and r33 in my area have staggered wheels on them too.

[tommyzoom99]

Hi tommy, the r33 gtr is a permanent rwd car, if you take a look it's a rwd gearbox too however they have output shafts on them for the front wheels and the front wheels are chain driven and activated using a pump system in the boot. One of the most common conversions to do on a gtr is either to add a switch to the fuse for the pump or just simply remove the fuse altogether. mine was used for drifting so needed to be rwd. And was staggered and the 2 or 3 others both r32 and r33 in my area have staggered wheels on them too.

really  s:?: :?: s:?:  im sorry but that's completely wrong, all gtrs are permanent 4wd and you can disconnect the front drive if you like on the r32 by removing a fuse but on r33 gtrs they run the 'attessa' AWD system same as a r34 gtr which makes it hard to convert to rwd, I have never heard of a rwd GTR in any form, or running chains to drive the front wheels that makes no sense at all and if you think about it sounds mad I mean chains really!!I think you must be confused.

I could be wrong but from owning 1 myself and doing work on it there was no pump in the boot and it was not rwd as stock when I owned it, and the official gtr register agrees with me: I just did a quick google and confirmed what I said you cant get rwd gtrs you can make them rwd but no stock gtr is rwd:

fact im afraid

you must of owned a GTT

sorry gone off topic here

cheers tommy

[roger]

none of them had staggered tyres, not even the many Hillman imps I`ve had.

gog.

I had a Singer Chamois, don't get too jealous   s:lol: :lol: s:lol: , but I reckon the amount of power hitting the road really wasn't likely to take a skin off a rice pudding let alone create oversteer, maybe the camber on the front wheels stopped all that   s:roll: :roll: s:roll:

[ChrisGB]

The chain drive in the R32 is a multi row take off that runs a wet clutch which controls drive the front axle.

The tyre stagger on the MR2 is there for a relatively safe handling balance.

[theredone]

none of them had staggered tyres, not even the many Hillman imps I`ve had.

gog.

........, maybe the camber on the front wheels stopped all that   s:roll: :roll: s:roll:

it would certainly have helped with the understeer. all my imps were de-cambered.