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Can a 14 inch wheel provide more riding comfort, hiding potholes and bumps, than 13 inch wheels?

For instance, the palio stile 1.1 runs on 13inch wheels, while the Palio sport runs on 14 inch wheels and also a bit wider in tire size. Palio owners and experienced mods, please advice

Bigger wheels in general do improve the ride quality as they more comfortably drive over potholes etc.

There are a few more factors that do affect the rider quality:
- Tyre Profile - Thicker tyres give a smoother ride
- Tyre conpound - Softer tyres give a smoother ride, but dont last as long
- Tyre width - Wider tyres provide better road grip, but lead to more fuel consumption.
- Any more factors i missed ?

They're more expensive than normal tyres.

ritz830, if long drives are not your regular routine then don't really bother. Though wider, fatter tyres do change the look of a car. :)

Generally a bigger wheel is said to be comfortable but lets say you upsize from 175/70 R13 to 195/60 R14, whats happened here is that while the wheel size has increased from 13 to 14, the tyre profile has reduced from 70 to 60.

So technically, your overall diameter is still the same and you've ended up with a lower profile tyre.

On the other hand if you compare 175/65 R13 vs 195/65 R14, the 14" setup not only has a wider contact area and a bigger overall diameter but it has also maintained its tyre profile, which is bound to improve ride quality. But doing this will cause the wheels to touch the wheel arch and makes for a very unpractical upgrade.

Shan2nu

If the wheel is more in dia than the stock, one needs to reduce the profile for sure, to get the (almost) accurate speedo reading. So, as ur first point says, if the car is running on a less profile tire, the ride comfort will also be less.

In case of Palio, the stock tire is, 165/80R13; where 80 is the profile.
The upgrade can be 185/65R14; where 65 is the profile, hence less comfort.

Hope it is clear now.

Edit: Did nt see Shan2nu's post.:)

in case of the indica, the stock sizes are 165/65R13 and 165/65R14 for the DLS and DLG. so the comfort should be the same. The steering is noticeably lighter for the smaller wheels though

As a general rule of thumb, moving to a bigger outer diameter and higher aspect ratio tire will increase comfort.

Folks even I am sailing in the same boat like, ritz 830!

Juts got the new Ford Ikon TDCI, the provided tires are 175/65/R13 from Goodyear.

I want to put alloys in that, Should I go in for 14" or should stick to 13" only.

If upgrade or change from Goodyear, then Michelin or Yokohama..?

Bigger wheels generally do provide more comfort (bus is perhaps more comfortable than a car), but not big wheels on a small car that has not been designed for it.

14" will be a good upgrade for ford ikon. Seeing the specs of Ikon's tires, you need to go for either 185/60R14 or 195/55R14. But the odd profile'd tires are bit hard to find in the market.

My vote goes for Michelin, 'coz that s what I use for my car. :D
Yoko s-drives are good, but i dont think u will find them in 14".

PS: Can you plz confirm the spec of Ikon's tire? I think it is 175/70R13.

BTW, are we terribly OT? :D

Ride a (folding) bicycle with 14-16 inch wheels and then ride a standard 26-inch wheel bicycle and you'll feel the difference yourself :)

Smaller wheels will fall in the small potholes but larger wheels may just skim on the same pothole because of its larger diameter. That's what makes ride quality with larger wheels better.

Theoritically, leaving out the profile aspect, bigger dia wheels means better milage right? (Logic: each revolution covers a longer distance than a small dia tyre) :)

A bigger wheel will have less vertical travel as compared to small wheel.
So here its OD, but if you upgrade to 14" rims and low profile tyres, well, then the ride quality wont improve.

So more OD = better ride quality.

But also, bigger wheel = more unsprung mass.

For example, our Baleno VXi's alloy wheel ( rim + tyre + tube and inflated ) weighs less than our Maruti 800 wheel ( rim + 145/70 Radial tyre + tube and inflated ).

So only if the OD varies quite a bit, we can say bigger wheel = better ride quality.

I am attaching two images to show that if the OD difference is reasonable, the ride quality will be better.

thing is , if you upsize the wheels, keeping the overall diameter constant , then comfort levels go down as the shock absorbtion by the tyre sidewalls is reduced

Nice picture. So bigger wheels with bigger tires do improve ride quality. I think many budget cars like swift,vista have improved their suspension by just upgrading their wheels