effect of large wheels on MPG
 

What effect does putting bigger wheels on a car/truck have on MPG? A friend of mine is looking at a used Chevy Avalanche with 24's on it and it got me wondering.

The larger the weels are
The less Miles Per Gallon you can do

but by how much? is it a big difference or negligable?

A simple google search should answer your question....

Do larger rims and smaller profile tires give you better gas mileage? - Yahoo! Answers

get the f*ck out of here, you mean that there is a thing on the interwebnet thing that would allow me to search? no friggin way! boy, al gore really knew what he was doing! cool!

thanks... :stfu:

HEAVY wheels use more fuel .

ok, so who's putting roller skate wheels on the X to save massive fuel?

It's not the size of the wheel that matters, it's the rotational inertia. This is assuming the rolling diameter is constant. Most of the time larger wheels have higher rotational inertia but not always. It depends on how much you want to spend and what you were starting with.

Could be due to a number of factors to include ambient temp and road temp, but when I change out the stock 18's on both my X and GMC Sierra to aftermarket 20's in the summer I actually get about 2-4 mpg better in both vehicles. Not only are the wheels taller but the tires that I use in the summer are wider as well.

Just my personal experience.

If all else is equal (weight and so on) and one wheel had a larger overall diameter than another wheel, it only seems right to me that the larger wheel would get better gas mileage. Your engine would have to turn fewer RPM's to get the same vehiicle speed with the larger wheel, right?