I saw a justa Roadster on the lot last Friday and noted it had 195X55R16 tires. On my 09 justa, I have found that going down to 195X50R15 has given me better acceleration and overall performance. Just curious how the justa Roadster performs with the larger tires. Jim
That is what I was thinking Norm, but wanted to ask someone that had one. I'm doing my homework way early this time and keeping notes. Jim
The only trouble with 15's is that the choice of good tires is getting slim. Many more choices in the 16" size.
Yes, this is a very true statement, but I still wounder about the performance, using larger tires with the same engine. Jim
Wow - those are seriously small tyres (assuming you really do mean R15) - nominal 576mm or 22.7 inch diameter. You've effectively lowered the car's gearing by 7%, so better acceleration is to be expected, though each gear will be a bit shorter. Mainly it will give you astronomic speedo readings as you must have roughly doubled the usual over-reading of the Mini speedo. So do you mean better real overall performance, or better apparent overall performance, 'cos your speedo must now be reading in mach numbers.
The speedo is reading eight over, I seem to be gaining four or five miles per hundred and yes, they are R15, as that is the size that came on the car. The car is much more responsive, accelerates faster and I have more usable torque around 2500 rpm, which I did not before. 3K use to be 70 mph, but now it is 67. The car feels better and pulls quickly to 4+K. I use the GPS to track MPH and miles traveled. I normally keep a car until it is a "make me an offer" situation, so I'm not concerned about the readings. I like it this way a lot. Jim
That must be the default size now, my 2009 Clubman S had that size too.... I run 215/45-17's now, but mostly because I like the way it looks, big enough to fill the wheel wells without being oversized and looking ridiculous. I'm sure there's some compromise in performance in there somewhere tho....
^^^ With the justa, I had to go smaller and lighter to get the performance I wanted. I know the "S" has way more power, but think how much faster they would be if everyone did not go bigger with everything. Jim