Changing the wheels from 13" to 14" on a VW Polo Match 1.0

clouty

Hi all you wonderful experts,

I have a darling Polo 1.0 match, five door (bought for £700, so not quite bangernomics but by no means brand new) and I love it. However all the tyres are near the legal wear limit, and the original alloys are pretty beat up, plus, the wheels look too small to me.

Would you recommend a wheel and tyre swap, going second-hand, and to 14"? At present acceleration is more than I need, and revs are high (3,500?) at the speed limit of 70... or is it a stupid idea?

Any advice gratefully received

xx

Joe_Horner

Personally I'd stick with the originals.

If you fit larger in order to drop the revs, you'll also have a speedo that's reading way out.

Assuming it's accurate at the moment, a swap to same profile 14s will make it under read by around 8%. That's enough to put you into ticketing range unless you remember to always drive at a "lower than limit" indicated speed.

If you fit lower profiles to get round that then you lose the benefit of dropping the revs.

You'll also find that you have a LOT less choice in 14 inch tyres than you do in 13. Some of the (used to be) popular widths and profiles in 24 inch are now made of pure unobtainium instead of rubber.

forgotmyname

You will need to get lower profile tyres so they match the current tyre measurements.

Then you need to declare them to your insurance. Do they insure modified vehicles? Will they charge a premium for them?

Fitting taller tyres will have a tiny affect on acceleration and gearing. It will affect the speedo worse.

Go from a 155/65x13 to a 195/65x14 and when your speedo reads 70mph you will actually be doing 80mph.

After a week or 2 you will wonder why you keep tripping speed camera's.

clouty

Ok, that's why it was a bad idea. I knew this was the place to ask. No way I want my speedo to under-read - silly idea. I like my clean licence. Thank you xx

Road_Hog

clouty wrote: »

Ok, that's why it was a bad idea. I knew this was the place to ask. No way I want my speedo to under-read - silly idea. I like my clean licence. Thank you xx

If you want to get bigger rims (the metal bit of the wheel) then you will need to buy thinner tyres, so the wheel remains the same size. This then won't effect your speedo readings.

TBH, having larger alloys on a 1.0L Polo is a bit of a waste of time.

red_eye

clouty wrote: »

Hi all you wonderful experts,

I have a darling Polo 1.0 match, five door (bought for £700, so not quite bangernomics but by no means brand new) and I love it. However all the tyres are near the legal wear limit, and the original alloys are pretty beat up, plus, the wheels look too small to me.

Would you recommend a wheel and tyre swap, going second-hand, and to 14"? At present acceleration is more than I need, and revs are high (3,500?) at the speed limit of 70... or is it a stupid idea?

Any advice gratefully received

xx

if your going larger in dia and not in width then you need to drop the aspect ratio a size to keep the rolling radius near enough the same as the 13" so if your 13" are 125/70 13 you need 125/65 or 60 14

going wider you will need to drop the A/R down a size for each increase in width. there are online calculators that will work out the rolling radius.

make thing easy and check out club polo, always people getting rid of bits and bobs there you might pick up a set of 13" with nearly new tyres.

King_Nothing

Just get some tyres delivered then take your car to a wheel refurb place, and get them to refurb your alloys and fit the new tyres for you instead.

Just checked, my car apparently overreads by 0.01553 for every 1mph, on account of me putting larger wheels on, not much really.

clouty

Two good ways forward from the King and red eye. Thanks guys, I'm off exploring those options. I love moneysavingexpert!

ETA club polo are careful with new membership, not only is there an activation email but you also have to wait for moderator approval! I guess they had an influx of spammers

red_eye

clouty wrote: »

Two good ways forward from the King and red eye. Thanks guys, I'm off exploring those options. I love moneysavingexpert!

ETA club polo are careful with new membership, not only is there an activation email but you also have to wait for moderator approval! I guess they had an influx of spammers

It is still a good site lots of info and helpful people

Joe_Horner

King_Nothing wrote: »

Just checked, my car apparently overreads by 0.01553 for every 1mph, on account of me putting larger wheels on, not much really.

You must have been very close to the maximum under-read on your originals then