Tyre Stretch

TYRE STRETCH - GOOD OR BAD?

Tyre Stretch is popular with a subsection of the modified car community. The chances are if you are on this site, you probably want to optimise your car for best handling and increase primary safety as a result.

In that case Tyre Stretch is out - to be fair I'm not sure how it became popular. Back in the day having a tyre wider than the rim tended to be popular, and it looked pretty good. Now it seems the trend with some is to fit as narrrow a tyre possible to as wide a wheel.

There's even a website dedicated to showing how many people have got this so dangerously wrong.

Take a look at this picture which shows a particularly bad example where a 165 tyre which should be fitted to a 5.5 or 6 inch rim, but in this case someone has fitted it to a 9 inch rim. It does of course look ridiculous in every way, not to mention dangerous. Seemingly, tyre stretch is a little like SUVs - they look stupid, perform worse in every way and yet still people do it.

It is the case that having a tyre used with the maximum safe wheel width, will potentially decrease sidewall flex, and may help grip levels.

However the range of adjustment is small, and the ratio between tyre width and rim width gets closer to 1:1 as the wheel and tyre width increase.

Here is a guide to help you choose a tyre and wheel combination that is safe and legal.

 At some car shows you may have even seen a stretched tyre being used as a way of holding business cards....well now that you have the right size tyres fitted this is no longer an option, but fear not, help is at hand, with a simple plastic self-adhesive card holder :)