Standard vs. Staggered Wheels

[jonrjen]

What if any are the benefits of Staggered vs. Standard tire and wheel fitment? It this purely an appearance preference or is there a positive or negative ride, feel, and handling aspect that comes into play.

I can see one negative being that if on a road trip and having a flat tire, you surely won't have dual matching spare tires and wheels in the trunk.

If you don't mind taking a minute to educate me I would appreciate your doing so.

Sponsored

 

[Bluemustang]

Standard wheels are better for handling. Staggered wheels will make the car understeer more and biases grip more towards the rear than standard configuration.

 

[Noggles]

I ran staggered wheels for years on my trans am and didn't really notice much of a difference switching to a square setup. I do some back road jaunts but I don't think I pushed my car hard enough to make a difference between the 2. Canyon driving or open track I think there would be but for me I never noticed anything.

 

[Grintch]

Standard wheels are better for handling. Staggered wheels will make the car understeer more and biases grip more towards the rear than standard configuration.

Over simplified, but true for a stock car.

Staggered fitments allow you to fit more total tire under the car, which should provide better handling/performance with a properly balanced setup (will need different spring rates than a square setup).
Staggered setups are better for drag use where wide front tires do little except increase the weight.

Square setups are better handling with stock and typical near stock setups (less understeer). They allow more effective tire rotations to manage/improve tire life (a bigger factor than many people think for performance use, as new tires on one end of the car don't match well with half worn tires on the other). They are also generally cheaper.

 

[66Bronc1]

Agree with staggered being better for drag racing- the more rubber in the back, the better for traction. Other than that and for most driving- especially the street I prefer standard as you can rotate the tires for even wear. With staggered, the rears will wear out before the fronts and there will never really be even tread all around. Staggered in the back looks more aggressive though- my 2017 Camaro RS had a staggered set up and it did look good.

 

[Blackbeauty]

quick question, pardon my ignorance. If a square setup is really better for track and turning/handling (I understand that the more tire in the rear would cause more understeer, that sounds logically correct) then why do the really "track-oriented" cars like the Porsche GT3's, Vipers ACR's and other super cars where the key selling point is their quantifiable track numbers all have aggressively staggered setups? PS I have a staggered setup merely for aesthetics. The fastest turns my car sees are highway on/off ramps lol

 

[Zelek]

Squared setup for tire rotations which benefit majority of us. I think staggered has it's place, but not for street drivers. Without being a super engineer or anything, I would think staggered setups on the high dollar cars like Porsche are for traction, but also you don't want to run really wide up front. Contact patch for the rear makes sense going really wide, but wouldn't handling suffer greatly if you ran the same width up front? Seems like it would introduce some unwanted characteristics.

 

[Grintch]

quick question, pardon my ignorance. If a square setup is really better for track and turning/handling (I understand that the more tire in the rear would cause more understeer, that sounds logically correct) then why do the really "track-oriented" cars like the Porsche GT3's, Vipers ACR's and other super cars where the key selling point is their quantifiable track numbers all have aggressively staggered setups? PS I have a staggered setup merely for aesthetics. The fastest turns my car sees are highway on/off ramps lol

Because those cars have a lot more rear weight bias than a Mustang. So they inherently need more rear tire.

 

[serpent]

Just wondering why if square is better, why Ford put 19x9 front and 19x9.5 on rear. 255/40 & 275/40. While I can see tire life extended w/sq and rotation. why either running 255/40 or 275/40 on all four corners would make ride and handling better then FMC's staggered than what they put on stock w/my PP1 pack?

 

[Zelek]

Just wondering why if square is better, why Ford put 19x9 front and 19x9.5 on rear. 255/40 & 275/40. While I can see tire life extended w/sq and rotation. why either running 255/40 or 275/40 on all four corners would make ride and handling better then FMC's staggered than what they put on stock w/my PP1 pack?

Because it looks good. Could be as simple as that.

 

[Grintch]

Just wondering why if square is better, why Ford put 19x9 front and 19x9.5 on rear. 255/40 & 275/40. While I can see tire life extended w/sq and rotation. why either running 255/40 or 275/40 on all four corners would make ride and handling better then FMC's staggered than what they put on stock w/my PP1 pack?

And what did they use on the PP2? Square 305 tires.

But let's face it, Ford's wheel and tire choices are very often non optimal. What idiot specified 8.5" wheels and 235 tires on a 3700lb car with over 400hp?

Plus from a manufacturers (liability) standpoint, understeer is good.

 

[Bluelightning]

And what did they use on the PP2? Square 305 tires.

But let's face it, Ford's wheel and tire choices are very often non optimal. What idiot specified 8.5" wheels and 235 tires on a 3700lb car with over 400hp?

Plus from a manufacturers (liability) standpoint, understeer is good.

Square 305 tires, but with staggered widths on the rims, which will affect the way that the tire performs, so not a true square setup.

 

[JCFoster]

I just went from the 8” oem square to 9” front and 10” on the rear. Under normal driving I can’t feel a difference in how the car drives even on our rutted up roads. But, I haven’t pushed it hard either. The one thing that did change was more road noise from the wider tires, Michelin AS3. The positive is the lighter wheels, HRE, seems to ride better.

I prefer a square set up, but the wheels I wanted were on sale and were staggered. The other down side was limited selection on tires at certain sizes.

 

[serpent]

And what did they use on the PP2? Square 305 tires.

On 10.5 & 11 inch rims this setup is still staggered.

 

[BmacIL]

And what did they use on the PP2? Square 305 tires.

But let's face it, Ford's wheel and tire choices are very often non optimal. What idiot specified 8.5" wheels and 235 tires on a 3700lb car with over 400hp?

Plus from a manufacturers (liability) standpoint, understeer is good.

8" actually...even worse. The limits are low.

Sponsored