Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

There was a recent thread on 4x4community
where a comment was made that the swaying Pajero was as a result of the tyre tread width being wider then the rim width.

This comment in particular was rather intriguing

Its the air pressure outside the width of the rim that gives that floating feeling and the more uneven the road is the worst it is

I deemed this to be rubbish because if that was the case then almost all of us would be having gatswaai-ing Pajero's (unlike our favourite appliances )

This made me wonder what real effect altering tyre width would have on handling. Calling Gerrit

Note that the independant suspension may cause the wrong camber when lifting - see image



has he had work done on the suspension? The rear sway bar links may have been swapped around on either the front or rear or maybe both (left is right and vice versa) causing the the anti-roll bar to be ineffective. he should drive only the one front (and then after the rear) wheel up an incline to force articulation and note the antiroll bar links - if he could take photo and post to forum we may spot something wrong

I won't comment on the

Its the air pressure outside the width of the rim that gives that floating feeling...

If "handling" refers to cornering stability, he might have a point.
A tyre with a tread wider than the rim does handle like a "brick on marshmellows".
The high profile and wide tread is exactly what we need for our SUVs. The large cross-sectional area has a very good cushioning effect, to the detriment of outright "handling".

In a straight line, the effect would be very small and should definitely not cause swaying.
In a "moose" test (fast left-right-left movements) the "balloon" tyres will be worse than say 45 profile tyres, but our SUVs are not designed for that type of driving.

Any deficiencies in his steering/suspension setup will be accentuated by the high/wide tyre profiles.
Different tyres will react differently. The stiffer side walls of eg BFGs (sorry Simon!) would be better than the soft side walls of other (lesser) tyres.

It does however definitely NOT cause swaying under normal circumstances.

My Gen1 has 12.5" wide 33" tyres on 8.5" wide rims, and it is as stable as anyone could expect of that type of vehicle.
Look at quad-bike tyres if you want to see "muhrse" ratio between rim width and tyre width!

Missing Attachment

BUSTED!

I recently went from 265/65/17 to 275/65/17. Also changed brands from Pirelli Scorpion AT/S to Yokohama Geolander AT/S.

With the Pirellis the handling was almost sportscar like on tar, but a bit harsh on gravel. The Geolanders are the exact opposite; much more comfortable on gravel, but wallows a bit around corners.

Not sure if the diffrence is due to the change in width or the change of brands.