- Hey how's it going, my name's Alex,
from Fitment Industries.
And today we're going to be talking about something
a little bit different.
We're going to be talking about all-wheel drive systems,
and if you can run staggered setups on all-wheel drive.
Now, the question itself seems pretty simple,
but when you get into it, all-wheel drive systems
can be a little bit finicky.
You've heard of people having issues with their
all-wheel drive systems causing all sorts of mishaps
when they have different tread patterns,
they have different widths.
Even something as having different wheels
in certain all-wheel drive systems can have adverse results.
So we're going to talk about it a little bit
because we've had questions in the comments regarding
you know, can you-- and not just can you, but should you?
And usually with a staggered setup,
you will see it mostly on rear-wheel drive vehicles.
But having a staggered setup on all-wheel drive cars
has become somewhat of a thing,
especially with the higher-end cars,
like Lamborghinis and things like that.
You have all different types of staggered setups,
you can have staggered setup just based on offset,
things like that do exist.
A lot of Mercedes-Benz AMG vehicles feature
different types of offsets which result
in a staggered setup.
You have different types of staggered setups
with widths and things like that.
But really those aren't really what we're talking about
when we talk about staggered setups.
We're talking about a staggered setup,
we're talking about a true difference in
the rolling diameter of your front and rear wheels.
Now we don't want to get into the specifics of
just what you have to look for when you're doing that,
but for the most part, all you have to assume
is that your front tires are going to be smaller
than your big tires in the back.
So when we look that just a little bit more,
something that you have to take into consideration
is that you can kiss your butt goodbye
when it comes down to rotating your wheels.
Which I don't really hear a lot of people
doing that anymore because they're all going
to directional-style tires.
But just know that if you're going in a staggered setup,
and you're getting something that's a true directional wheel
and a true directional tire, that's only
supposed to be on one corner of the four wheels,
just expect that once that thing burns out you're just
going to have to buy a brand new tire.
(clicking noise)
You're supposed to take your shirt off.
That's what he did.
There we go, yeah.
So we're going to take my own car for example.
The front wheels are smaller than the rear wheels.
And the Porsche 9N6 Turbo is an all-wheel drive system.
Here's what happens, is because your wheel is smaller
in the front than it is in the back,
your all-wheel drive system looks for
what's called, "Slippage."
And there's a lot of other, fancier terms that you can use,
but ideally, it's when your tires are slipping.
The whole point of an all-wheel drive system
is to make sure that they have power on all four wheels.
And when it recognizes a slip,
it kills the power to that specific area.
Depending on how advanced your all-wheel drive system is,
it can cut to one wheel, it can cut to all four wheels,
it can do all sorts of fancy stuff.
But here's the thing, when your rolling diameter
is different from the front to the rear,
you just overall have a smaller overall rolling diameter
of your wheel in the front.
And because it's rotating faster than
the larger wheel in the rear,
sometimes your all-wheel drive system can think
that the front wheels are slipping.
So what ends up happening?
Well only your all-wheel drive system
tries to tell your computer that something's happening
and something is wrong, and then the slipping happens
in the front.
And then sometimes it kills power,
sometimes it can cause issues.
But most notably, you just have an overall
terrible tread wear, and you have all sort of issues
in the front.
And sometimes even your differential can have issues,
it's just-- it's a mess.
But there is a way to kind of think about that,
and how you want to deal with the staggered setup
on all-wheel drive.
And to answer your question on if you can run
all-wheel drive on a staggered setup,
yes you can, but there are a couple things that
you're going to want to think about
before you go ahead and do that.
So the rule of thumb is, 1% variance
between the front and rear overall diameter
of your wheel, including the tire.
So the good news is that we have a calculator
on our website that can actually determine
what the difference is in diameter,
if you head over to our website.
Which you don't have to, you can just keep watching
the video, it's completely fine.
That allows you to see the overall difference
in variance between the two wheels.
One of the things that you need to take into consideration,
like the fact that maybe your vehicle from factory
came with a staggered setup.
A perfect example would be, again, the car that we have
in the showroom.
From factory, it has a .5% variance
just right out of the gate.
So if we really want to kind of extend out
and kind of get a little bit more aggressive
with the staggered setup, you can,
as long as the vehicle that your modifying
has that variance somewhat built in.
Another iconic vehicle that has a variance built into it
are Lamborghinis.
They have an all-wheel drive system that already has
a variance put into it straight from stock.
So if you're looking to run a more aggressive setup
on your all-wheel drive vehicle, can you do it?
Yes, and you can go above that 1% variance if you want to.
As long as there's some sort of
factory-manufactured variance right from the get-go.
Otherwise, we'd recommend staying underneath that 1%.
Now you can't hold us liable if you decide to go with
5 or 6% off the variance, and then all of a sudden
something happens to your diff and you come back
and yell at us for having some sort of say in it.
You pretty much have to use your own discretion.
Because if you want to be safe we usually recommend
within 1%.
Now if your car comes with a staggered setup
right out of the gate you can include that
into whatever your new staggered setup will be.
For myself, I went with a 1.01% variance,
instead of the typical .5% variance,
on the stock wheels for my car.
Our own Lamborghini had about a 1.5 to 3% variance
on both of the cars that we had,
because that system could potentially take it.
Because it came just straight out of the gate,
and we were willing to take the risk at the time.
Usually what our recommendation is,
if you're going out to buy a staggered setup,
and this is your first time, and you're researching,
and you came across this video,
just don't go out there and just blindly pick
what you want to run, especially if it's on
an all-wheel drive car.
We recommend that you actually shoot us an email
if you need some help, you can do that at
wheels@fitmentindustries.com,
or you can just drop a comment too.
But you're going to want to take into consideration,
especially when you're going to buy
all-wheel drive staggered setups,
that you keep it within the variance.
And if you're doing it in a rear-wheel drive setup,
we'd actually recommend that you email us all the same,
because the fitment can be all sorts of messy
depending on what you own.
If you guys are looking to get more information
on what your variance is, again we recommend
that you check out the calculator at
fitmentindustries.com, otherwise,
don't forget to subscribe.
Let us know it the comments what you'd like
to see us talk about next, but I'm Alex,
for Fitment Industries, and we'll see you later.
Peace.
(upbeat electronic music)
(car engine roaring)
(tires squealing)
(engine roaring)