Personally I've never really understood aftermarket wheels to begin with. There are very few cars out there that have really atrocious wheels that if I bought the car they would have to come off. The closest I can think of are maybe the default 350z wheels or RX-8.

I think wheels can make or break a car look wise.
 
performance... I'm always dubious, that these big wheels help.
 
I think alot of the handling benefit is more from the bigger wheel being wider, rather then having thicker side walls.
 
The weight problem is even bigger then karl makes it out to be.
 
Since the actual rim is general a large percentage of the total mass of the wheel, as you move it out futher and futher, you are making your engine work harder, and killing performance.
 
it takes more energy to move that metal so far away from the center of rotation.
 
Not only does it slow down acceleration, it slows down the ability to steer, and brake. True performance doesn't require 20in.
 
I doubt it requires 18.

Completely agree - I always wonder (especially with those Dodge Ram stock 20s everywhere) if owners take into consideration the fact that it's going to cost them $1,200+ every time they need new tires instead of the $400 they may be used to. In my case, if I can find a set of wheels that fits over my brakes I'm looking into downsizing from stock 18" to 17". Not so much from a cost standpoint but I'd like the little bump in ride quality and decrease in weight.

I've had 18s on 2 of my last 3 cars. I would prefer never again to go over 17. With 18s come poor treadlife, little handling benefit, heavy wheels and a big dose of not fun on lousy roads. Over 18 and I really wonder what the point is.
 
17s so far offer the best compromise in my eyes and feeling. Enough sidewall that there's not excessive flex, good road-holding, nice shock absorption, cheap replacement, longer lasting.

Large diameter wheels and ultralow profile tires are both silly and useless affectations, for most vehicles, and a pet peeve of mine.
 
I will not own a car with tire profiles less than 55, I had a BMW 328i sport package and the 50-series tires were the worst feature of the car. Knobbly ride, problems staying in true balance, tramlining on uneven surfaces, all for very marginal cornering gains.
 
All vehicles I have driven with larger diameter wheels have had unpleasant ride, and steering that both lacked feel and precise tracking in the straight-ahead.
 
Years ago my favorite vehicles had inspiring, precise steering, ability to withstand road shocks, reasonably supple ride, and good, balanced handling. Newer vehicles with very low profile tires lose all that for aesthetics and last-gasp cornering grip, and often attempt to hide a clumsy chassis and suspension. Heck, older Saabs, BMWs, Audi/VWs, Alfas, Peugeots, even Fords and Hondas were fun to drive and well-balanced in their abilities.
 
Many of the big-wheel, low profile beasts on the road today are trucklike and unpleasant, with frequent trips to the wheel repair shop and tire replacements.
 
It is a trend that deserves to diminish as automakers will be forced to actually develop good inherent chassis behavior again, without using the crutch of ultralow profile tires and those profit-heavy silly wheels. The whole bling thing has always been a tasteless obscenity.

I remember that back in the 70's, wheels got smaller and smaller so the cars could be lower and the ride could be softer. Of course that made the already inadequate [mostly] drum brakes even more likely to heat up and fade.
Since the functional penalties are well known, the main driver of ever-larger wheels has to be style. Form over function; if that's what the market wants, that's what the manufacturers will sell. Those huge whips' popularity comes from the same place as gas-guzzling 4WD's that never leave pavement. I say, if you can want 'm, and can afford 'em, buy 'em.

That's just the way the market is now. Sad to say the car makers have jumped on the 20"+ rim bandwagon because of the supposed allure of bigger rims (we can thank MTV, VH1 and BET for that....:-/ ).
 
There is one minor advantage with using a bigger rim-you now have the space for bigger (and hopefully BETTER) brakes.

I think putting 16+ inch wheels on cars is lunacy. Large wheels are VERY heavy. Anyone who has had to change a wheel on the road knows that. Heavy wheels kill your fuel mileage, too. Worse, going larger than 16 inches can be detrimental to car's handling.

Plenty of vehicles with ultrathin tires get parked on LA CA roadsides, wheels bent and tires flat, thanks to real world potholes that pop up after rainstorms or whenever the roads crumble. Those cars were usually BMW or other euros.
 
At one Chevrolet clinic , engineers remarked how Marketing requirements for ultra low profile tires made it difficult to provide good ride and handling.
 
As for "best tire" design, it seems anything lower than 55 ratio offers a harsh ride with little improvement in handling. Wrt wheel size, 17" seems a good compromise. A pity alloy forging costs so much, as that seems to make the strongest and lightest wheel.

Big rims are like SUVs for most folks - a pure styling statement, with major functional drawbacks. I look at it slightly differently - anything less than 50 series is nonsense. At least at 50, you get some level of ride and rim protection, and you can get good performance models in that range, something that's harder to do with 60 series.

Big wheels look cool! :) I know they hamper ride quality, probably worsen handling, are expensive and increase unsprung mass......but they just look cool!!!!!
To me big wheels are like ice-cream: ice-cream tastes good and makes you feel good when you eat it but offers no health benefits.....in fact, it's not good for health.
 
I haven't upgraded the wheels on my car yet because the stock alloy wheels look good enough, I don't want to reduce the legendary Mazda handling, and I could honestly do better things with my money. But I sometimes imagine how much better my car would look with 17- or 18-inch wheels! Hmmm.....maybe I should use my tax rebate for that!!

What looks sillier than an Escalade with 20"+ rims and little "silver dollar" brake rotors sitting in the middle?

I think the wheel size goes with the times. Remember that the old cars from the 20's & 30's used large wheels too on skynny tires. Just back to late 60's & 70's you were trying to cramp the wider tires under your cars fenders. Looked like donuts overflowing the rims.
 
I saw a lot of the what they call .... the DONKS crowd! Putting 20", 22" & 24" on old early 80's caprice or Crown Vic.
 
Yes, some cars look good and others don't with large tires and of course the laws of physics will apply.
 
Maybe we are going back to 13" again!

"(we can thank MTV, VH1 and BET for that....:-/ ). "
 
Yeah I'm sure thats where MB and BMW get their tips from these days. Big wheels are spreading because they give cars a sportier look and they allow for larger diameter brakes. What people are not talking about is the fact that more powerful cars need serious brakes and serious tires to reign in that power. YOu arent going to slow an AMG powered car with 11" brake rotors and thus you need large wheels to fit the necessary rotors.
 
19s are big enough for large cars, 18s are gib enough for midsize cars and 20s are large enough for SUVs. We do not need to go back to the 90s when it comes to wheel sizes. HAs anyone ever seen a Lucerne with the standard 16" wheels? It looks ridiculous. Same with a 5 series with 16" wheels.

I still like the style enough to go for at least 18"s on a sports car or luxury sedan. But for me, I'm happy with both my cars. Our Yukon has 17"s. Obviously still plenty of sidewall and a nice soft ride, and acceptable treadlife and replacement cost, but they do look like a nice upgrade over the 15"s that came as standard on lower trim levels. I don't think 20"s look out of place on a vehicle this big, but I don't want them. Our Mazda3 has 16"s. Again, a nice upgrade over the base 15"s with plastic wheel covers, but a smoother ride and cheaper to replace than the optional 17"s (at least, that's what I keep telling myself. Maybe I'm just jealous that the 3i "value edition" with 17"s and a few other extras was released after I bought mine last fall).

Thank you, Karl, for bringing up this subject. You are absolutely right on the money about this. Let's hope this continuing trend toward heavy, stupid-looking, ever-larger diameter wheels has finally run it course.

"I saw a lot of the what they call .... the DONKS crowd! Putting 20", 22" & 24" on old early 80's caprice or Crown Vic."
 
That's what I see a lot of here in San Antonio. Some of these youngsters will take some old beat up 80's junker, shoehorn oversized rims on it then cruise around downtown on Saturday nights with the car stereo systems blaring. I can't help but wonder why anyone in their right mind would spend much time, energy and $$$ to look so utterly foolish...

Every current concept car sketch (indeed, everyconcept for the last few years!) features huge wheels and ultra thin tires. Until that styling stops, or Gen Z gets tired of it, we'll probably be seeing that look for a long while yet.
 
As for SEMA, isn't that where Auto Excess thrives? Any bet's this year's will attract a larger crowd than ever?

"I can't help but wonder why anyone in their right mind would spend much time, energy and $$$ to look so utterly foolish..."
 
You took the words right out of my mouth. Even allowing for serious differences in taste, however, what I can't figure out is why someone (especially someone with very little expendable income) would take a crappy car and invest thousands in huge blinged-out rims, instead of buying a nicer car and living with regular wheels.

It doesn't matter what any of us think. Car manufacturers give the consumers what they want. If people didn't want big rims, the automakers wouldn't offer them- it's just that simple. And why wouldn't they offer them? It makes perfect since from a financial standpoint because many people would run to the aftermarket as soon as the car gets off the lot so why not keep the money for themselves? Blaming companies for making big wheels is like blaming the Big3 for producing huge amounts of heavy SUVs instead of the consumers buying them. During the '90s, that's what everyone wanted so the manufacturers delivered the goods.
  
Big rims alone do not make cars sit up higher as the overall diameter of the outside surface remains the same (if one uses the "plus" concept). As betlines rise, it is necessary to increase the size of the wheel wheel opening and thus the wheel size to keep the looks of the car scaled properly. You cannot increase the size and profile of the car without increasing the size of the rims.
  
Do we have any stylists on this blog? I'd love to know they're thoughts since they are indeed the experts- not just people with wild opinions.

The big problem is that cars are so tall these days that they need big wheel+tire combos to look right. It's all about the height of the sheetmetal above the wheel well (the fender, basically)... if you look at 10+ year old sporty cars, there isn't much of it. You see a wheel, an inch of body, and then the hood. But take a look at the new Sentra, for example. Wheel, a huge fender, then the hood. I think that's what designers are trying to cover up with gigantic wheel wells.
 
Even if they can't avoid those wheel wells though, I don't understand what's so great about rubber-band tires. On some cars they give a Conestoga Wagon look, and very few places have roads that are nice enough to make them comfortable. It's not all about how much tire you have - heavy wheels make your suspension more sluggish to react, which worsens the ride. That effect is usually more important than the negative effect on acceleration.
 
If you have enormous brakes, then you really do need enormous wheels. But you only need big brakes if you're constantly braking at track speeds with a pretty heavy car. Of course, those are the coolest cars, so everyone has to copy them...

18" or 19" wheels are usually plenty big enough for most high-performance "Brembo-type" brake setups with 13"-14+" dia rotors. At some point, however, I'd think you'd see diminishing returns from larger brake rotors and wheel/tire combos, as the rotational mass increases beyond a certain point.
 
I find it interesting, however, to note that (arguably) the ultimate high-performance car - an F1 race car - has only 13" dia. wheels, yet has better braking performance than probably anything else on four wheels. (See the F1 web site regarding its wheel diameter regulation: "Article 12 Wheels and tyres...12.4.4 Wheel bead diameter must lie between 328 and 332mm.")

I think that there are some new cars that look so much better with the larger wheels/tires offered on the sports packages. The BMW 3-series comes to mind.
 
I switch from the sports package 18 wheels/wider tires that came with my car to the standard size 16 wheels/snow tires in the winter and immediately notice a quieter, smoother ride and better gas mileage. But it doesn't handle as well, and I don't like the looks nearly as much either. So I am happy with the tradeoffs of the 18 inch wheels.
 
BTW, does anyone know if car manufacturers must show the lower gas mileage on the window sticker that accompanies something like a sports package? Or do manufacturers try to get around that by listing absurdedly high air pressure with the larger tires, which may neutralize the gas mileage hit but certainly hurts ride and tire life?

The handling benefits to larger wheels are mythical, imo. Sure at some point the tire sidewalls become big enough to flex and reduce responsiveness, but a) you can get sportier tires, and b) you don't have to downsize quite so much. With smaller, lighter wheels, that responsiveness is all you stand to lose - the handling itself can only improve!
 
In the photo montage at the top of this entry, the bottom-left wheel has as much tire as I would personally want, aesthetically. Put some UHP summer tires on that (Falken Azenis 615, Bridgestone RE-01, or Toyo T1-R, if you ask me), and you're good to go. In other words, don't get factory option wheels just because of the tires they come with. You can get the best of both worlds by shopping for your own aftermarket wheels and tires.

I was with a friend at a Honda dealer a couple of weeks ago as she was buying a car. There was an Accord sedan on display with gargantuan, hideous chrome wheels on it and the dealer actually had the audacity to charge over $3K for them, there's no accounting for taste! Made me wonder if you buy a new car from a dealer with non-standard rims, do they give you the standard wheels and tires too, or deduct them from the price or just keep them?
 
My current car came with factory option 19" wheels, I think the standard was 18" but they didn't have any on the lot. They do look a bit big for my taste, but don't seem to effect ride, so I'm not too bothered.

The sooner the big wheel fad passes the better. And the "bling" fad can die along with the twenties too.
 
I like full size spare tires. No run-flat tires for me.
My Mazda6 has standard 17" and I'm planning on a set of 16"s when the rubber is ready for replacement.
Potholes equal bent wheels with big wheels and small tires in the Midwest.

"I find it interesting, however, to note that (arguably) the ultimate high-performance car - an F1 race car - has only 13" dia. wheels, yet has better braking performance than probably anything else on four wheels."
 
What is the weight of an F1 car? Less weight means less braking surface area is required to stop the car.
 
"The sooner the big wheel fad passes the better. And the "bling" fad can die along with the twenties too. "
 
Its more than a fad and its not going anywhere. Do you really think we will get back to the days of 15" wheels on family cars? When you look at import cars especially you can see we will never go back to small wheels. 15s may have been OK on an Accord 10 years ago but they would look ridiculous on today's Accord which is much larger.
 
What is the "bling" fad anyway? I see this term used more by older people who have no idea where the term originited than I do from younger folks. Chrome was around long before the term "bling" was part of the lexicon. Check out cars from the 40s through 60s for reference.

Hard to believe that my granddad's 1964 Pontiac Catalina, as big of a land yacht as that beast was, only had 14" rims.
 
I don't so much mind 20s on a pickup or an SUV - I guess I've just gotten used to them by now - and like many others have said, it's a styling statement that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
 
That being said, I still can't help but laugh when I see a mid-70s Caprice or a Coupe DeVille with 24s, 26s or something equally ridiculous - you have wonder how the drivers don't get motion-sickness driving those, since those things are always bucking up and down like a mechanical bull at Gilley's.

Big wheels aren't going anywhere anytime soon. If you don't like them then don't buy cars with that option. There are still MBs and BMWs with standard 16" wheels available to satisfy your need (if you can find any stripper base models on the lot).
 
Carlisimo hit the nail on the head- cars are adding more verticle sheet metal as the bumper lines move higher (I'm guessing to meet pedestrian crash standards) so leaving wheel diameter the same size will make your car look pretty stupid (like a Fit or Smart ForTwo).

I've seen a few ScionXBs lately that seem to be bucking the big wheel trend, they've actually had smaller rims fitted with fatter tires, and they look good...well for a Scion.

"The big problem is that cars are so tall these days that they need big wheel+tire combos to look right"
Precisely. Look at the new Focus. It has 16" rims which should look normal on a subcompact, but the high beltline makes them look like 13"s. Contrary, my father had a '97 Jaguar XJ6 with 16" rims. The beltline was very low, so the rims looked (and were) very adequate.
 
Some cars need larger rims with low profile tires. You'd have one helluva time controlling a Corvette with 15" rims on 205/70/15 tires.
 
The key is to balance the car. That requires a suitable rim, appropriate tire tread, and a durable tire compound. If the contact patch is too small, the car become uncontrollable. If it's too large, you're wasting gas.

I was sitting in front of Pinkberry over the weekend enjoying a tasty treat, and there was a Jag XF parked on the street nearby. People were constantly stopping to take a look at it. Two people stopped and took cameraphone pics. Based on what I saw, there's nothing "questionable" about the looks of the XF. It looks good. Real good.
 
In my opinion most cars look better with the wheel upgrade offered by manufactures. Often now this is a 20" rim. Maybe it's because bigger wheels add a sporty touch to an otherwise dull car. But aftermarket rims that are larger generally look ghetto and disproportionate. The only car that I've seen that looks good with standard small rims is the Mini Cooper.

...but what's with the rubber bands, its so ridiculous, what kind of ride do you want, you desire your luxury car to ride like a gravel truck? I've watched guys in cars with such tires and when the car hits a bump, the people go up and down instead of the car - real smart! What's that extremely harsh ride doing to the area on your car where the suspension is mounted? Most tires have sidewalls designed to flex to a degree, this acts to smoothen out road imperfections, many of these ultra low profile tires have so little sidewall left that there is virtually no flex at all. IMHO many of the cars outfitted with ultra low profiles and huge chrome rims look like big 'Hotwheel' toys...
...what really kills me are the wheels that are actually wider than the tire, what brainchild came up with that winning combination? Obviously someone who owns a custom wheel shop - all you have to do is think about brushing up against a curb and its time to replace that rim, makes me laugh every time I see a car with such a setup, utter stupidity - I dare someone to explain how that makes any sense at all...

Seems two camps exist on this:
 
1. It looks better crowd
2. The performance trade-off isn't worth it crowd.
 
I'd rather enjoy what I'm driving than be concerned with the exterior appearance. That doesn't improve my ownership experience. In fact, large tires decrease enjoyment of the vehicle in my experience. I'll never forget the pain and expense of replacing an 18 in 2003 - even the tire manufacturer said they didn't have one to sell to me. Finally found the darn tire in a BMW dealer and got raked over the coals for it. Replacing 18s every 12-15k miles isn't a picnic either...great trade off, heavier wheels, more engine strain, harder ride but not any better handling, expensive to replace, short-lived and easy to damage. Sign me up for more of those!

I don't think the large wheel fad is going away soon, but I do think it has gotten a little much. True, today's Tahoe would look a little funny with a 15" rim stuck under it, but stick a 20" rim under a 2wd '98 Tahoe (the last year 15" were used on GM's trucks) and it also looks very disportionate. But I also think most of todays cars are getting too bloated and over wieght. Thus a larger tire and wheel package has to be had to balance out the look, added to to the bloated and over wieght deal.
 
Is there a place for larger tire and wheel combo's? Sure, it the right application. I think 20"s on a Charger or Challenger are too much as they will be on the new Camaro. Are 22"s too much for the Escalade. Yes, definately, but then I also think the Escalade is the epitome of too much. Sure it looks gorgeous (depending on your tastes), but it's just too much. 20"s though, would be suffiecient and 18"s might even suffice. Everyone just thinks the the lo-pro look is the "it" factor. As for today's performance cars, I think again, 18"s or 19"s would be sufficient to get the handling and peformance characteristics desired and still be large enough to handle the brakes needed to go with the performance.
 
But if we start downsizing our cars again, we could go back to smaller wheel and tire combos. That would be the best thing right?? Just think about the performance you could get out a of Camaro (closer to the original) if it were smaller, with smaller tires and wheels with the same engine they are planning on putting in it? Plus it would get better fuel economy as there wouldn't be as much wieght to sling around. Everyone just thinks that bigger is always better. When in reality it, probably isn't.

I'd reckon only 2 out of every 10 Escalades I see have the standard 18" wheels. Nobody wants those- and believe or not, most of the drivers are not rappers. They are quite the opposite demographic.

"I can't help but wonder why anyone in their right mind would spend much time, energy and $$$ to look so utterly foolish..."
 
Why do people pump thousands into old civics and ride around with ridiculous exhaust pipes, stickers with logos of parts manufacturers, tints, neon lights, 18" rims and obnoxious sound systems? Don't try and understand what the young chose to do with their money.
 
For those who have a problem with large wheels you can always buy a Toyota or Honda. The top trim Camry comes with 16" rims and the Pilot still has 17s when the competition has moved to 18s or 20s. The base model of almost any vehicle is available with "normal" sized rims so you have the option of avoiding plus sized wheels. Even on the Escalade you can stick with the undersized 18" wheels if you so chose.

Big wheels are just a fashion statement. One of the basic tenets of automotive engineering is that unsprung weight is one of the enemies of good suspension dynamics. As noted it is not coincidental that F1 cars have 13 inch wheels. Most cars do not need anything larger than 16" wheels. I always laugh at the sticker shock of Jag and Land Rover owners when they come into the local tire store to get a quote on the cost of an 18 or 19" tire, well over twice the cost of a 16" equivalent! The obssesion of many is to "fill in" the wheel well so their car lokks better. I would think auto designers would just simply make the openings smaller to solve that problem.

"I would think auto designers would just simply make the openings smaller to solve that problem."
 
Then we'd end up with cars like the Hyundai Elantra, which has an enormous back quarter and looks awkward, imo.

The original Minis had 10-inch wheels. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

"As noted it is not coincidental that F1 cars have 13 inch wheels. Most cars do not need anything larger than 16" wheels"
 
As noted an F1 car weighs as much as a feather. Try and install 13" wheels and 9.5" brakes on your average 3500 lbs sedan, slam on the brakes and let us hear your report.
 
"I would think auto designers would just simply make the openings smaller to solve that problem."
 
Well that is why they get paid the big bucks to design cars and we don't. As many have already stated, when you scale up dimesnions of the design, you cannot leave the wheel wells the same size and expect a cohesive look.

"As noted an F1 car weighs as much as a feather. Try and install 13" wheels and 9.5" brakes on your average 3500 lbs sedan, slam on the brakes and let us hear your report. "
 
F1 cars are stopping from much higher speeds though, so that helps to counter the weight arguement.

F1 cars are a bit too wild to be useful here... they have carbon-carbon brakes that don't work until they're heated up to temperatures that would overwhelm any regular car's brakes, and their wheel size is based more on tradition than technical usefulness. Some teams have "hubcaps" designed to suck air through the wheel to help the cooling, too. The tires are totally different to regular ones too... they don't suffer any mushiness just because of their aspect ratio.
 
Prototype/endurance racers are probably a more useful analogy.

"Well that is why they get paid the big bucks to design cars and we don't. As many have already stated, when you scale up dimesnions of the design, you cannot leave the wheel wells the same size and expect a cohesive look."
Which ties into another enthusiast pet peeve, vehicular obesity! Stop making cars so obscenely big!!! This high beltline crap is past its prime too. And before you pull out the consumers aren't enthusiasts line, remember that dedicated sports cars are suffering the same problems. Fuel prices and CAFE requirements are also going to require a shift back to sensibility.

"F1 cars are a bit too wild to be useful here... they have carbon-carbon brakes that don't work until they're heated up to temperatures that would overwhelm any regular car's brakes, and their wheel size is based more on tradition than technical usefulness. Some teams have "hubcaps" designed to suck air through the wheel to help the cooling, too. "
 
Thank you. Its also not been mentioned that racing cars have special sticky compound tires that far outgrip whats available on passenger cars. Ceramic brakes, plus light weight, plus super wide racing tires equals great braking with 13" wheels and small brakes.

On some cars big wheels make sense to me (at least for handling/styling purposes) but generally anything bigger than 17/18 inches is to much I would agree.