Benefits of a 17in wheel vs 16in

Man, this thread is hilarious!

Not sure if this has been settled yet, but..

Tires are tires. These are the rubber thingies that mount on wheels.

Wheels are wheels. They are the metal dealies that tires are mounted on.

And, the difference in sidewall on a 16" VS 17" wheel is pretty small. And, the 4runners can afford the extra inch of wheel because they also come with bigger tires than the Tacoma.

 

I find it hilarious that the original Dodge Viper had 17's, which seemed big back then! My '85 Supra had 14's. I remember trying to find tires for it in the early 2000's. Even then, not many choices.

 

My fist car had 13s

That shit makes me feel so old and yet I'm really not that old or so I say

 

I think mine did, too! It was an early 90's Hyundai Excel hatchback. Got it for $300 with a broken shifter cable (4 speed manual). I replaced the shifter cable with one from a salvage yard and had a decent car, with only 76K miles.

Of course, I replaced it with a shit-box '85 Celica coupe, with problems galore. But, it was RWD and a "sports car".

Haha, I just looked it up, and the Hyundai had 155/80r13 tires!

 

I had a 91 toyota tercel same size tires. I really wanted a Nissan Hardbody pickup from the 90s of course 4wd and manual back then. That was for some reason what I dug. You could of gotten one brand new off the lot extra cab and pretty loaded for like 24k.

 

The biggest difference I've noticed in looking at different tire sizes is in a 17" there are a lot more options for non-E Rated tires especially in the 285 size. Almost everything in a 285/75-16 is E rated where in a 285/70-17 there's a decent amount of SL and C rated options.

 

I didn't figure they were selling Hyundai's in the U.S. in the early 90's, I remember the Hyundai & Kia started appx. the same time. I think they came right after the Yugo. OOOOHHHHhhh, the Yugo, now that's a memory.

 

Good point!

I'm not even positive of the year. It had to be early 90's, though. I just looked, and they began selling the Excel in North America in '86.

 

My fried in high school had one it was hilarious

 

This right here.

 

Yes, you can use bigger brake rotors with bigger wheels, but can I notice any difference? My smaller rotors can stop the wheels from turning, for the larger ones to do anything more than stop the wheels, , they would need to make the wheels turn backwards. Options in sizes will always be with what sizes are mostly used at that time. In 1966 most vehicles used 14" & many more 14" options were available, the 17" were rare & there were few 17" options. Today most vehicles use the 17" thus more options for the 17" & few for the old 14". I don't see anything that would make a noticeable difference in driving the truck.

 

Larger rotors on a BBK will generally reduce stopping distance and resist brake fade since there is more material to dissipate heat. Whether or not you would see a difference depends on how you use your truck.

 

I agree with the heat & brake fade, if you are doing 100 laps wide open at Bristol Motor Speedway. Daily driving or rock crawling I jusst don't think anyone could feel any difference.

 

It might be beneficial to someone who tows a lot.

 

I've had brake fade on more than one occasion in the Tacoma, and it hasn't seen any track days.

I'm running a relatively light wheel/tire combo too.

 

Agree with towing, stopping a trailer or a heavy load, will take more braking energy than a light load. Just hard to see a 1/2" larger rotor making enough difference to notice it. Same with the brake fade, under normal use, brakes don't fade. Something out of the norm caused it. If you ride your brakes down a 4 mi. long hill your brakes will get hot & fade but I think even if you had next size larger rotor they would still fade, maybe a little less but I think still not enough you could tell any difference... Wait, why did ya'll (not me) start talking brakes?? This thread is about wheel & tire sizes

 

17s look better on a 2nd gen imo
Other than that I dont think it theres mich of an advantage vs 16 when it comes to offroading

 

Uh....

Did you forget this post?

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I realize that, but I don't take the blame for anything,,,, it's always someone else's fault

 

Smart