Best P185/60R15 for traction. LRR a plus.

[ddongbap]

Originally Posted by sbergman27

Don't read it! Watch it! :-)

Walter Lewin's lectures are works of art. Although this is, unfortunately, the one in this series where he's ill. Usually he ends up flying through the air between trapeze bars, electrified by a Vandergraff generator, or nearly decapitated by a Focault Pendulum, in order to underscore his trademark declaration: "Physics works!".

Each semester, he rehearses each lecture 3 times in front of an audience of at least one.

He does, BTW, address the temperature issue you bring up here. But slyly. He always leaves the students with at least one problem, with a non-obvious answer, to ponder. In this case, it's the width of race car tires.

I posted the link to OCW not so much to make an argument for wider or narrower, but because Walter is a very, very dedicated, cool, and inspirational professor, of a breed that this world could do with a lot more of. And, of course, it *is* pertinent to the topic at hand.

-Steve

Hes smart for sure. But I ain't.

I also forgot to add that wider tires will cause your car to accelerate slower. So if you're unable to go fast enough into a corner to use all that grip, its just wasted grip.

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted by ddongbap

Hes smart for sure. But I ain't. I also forgot to add that wider tires will cause your car to accelerate slower. So if you're unable to go fast enough into a corner to use all that grip, its just wasted grip.

Why will wider tires cause the car to accelerate slower, to any significant degree? Also, I think that I missed the part where we established, for certain, that wider tires *did* facilitate (all that) extra grip.

[MUSKOKA800]

Wider tires weight more. With the puny power levels of the Yaris every added pound effects accelleration and braking.
The braking difference between my 14" steelies with winter tires and my heavier 15" OEM alloys with factory Goodyear 3-seasons is astounding. Seat of the pants feel during accelleration, while noticable doesn't seem to be as extremely effected by the heavier footwear.