What are the drawbacks of running a staggered set-up on a front drive vehicle? The car will never be on a track and will be a daily driver. Let me hear your thoughts. I am looking at 19x8.5F/19x9.5R.

 

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You won't be able to rotate your tires. It increases under/over steer. I can't remember which one. Nothing you'll notice driving on the street though.

 

Staggering is for RWD cars to get the power down to the ground. The tC is a FWD car…
All cars are designed with understeer…staggering the wheels will make it even worse…

 

form>function! lol get them in a +12,+22 offset while your at it

 

I considered the rotation issue and I am fine with that. The understeer really should not be a problem since this car will never be pushed hard enough to ellicit this.

Cars are designed with understeer because that is easier to catch than oversteer for the general public. What would the difference be between a wheel stagger and spacers on the rear to bring the wheels flush?

Don't think I will be poking that far out Speedy.

 

It is next to impossible to predict quantitatively how your qualitative handling will change, that is why changes are made to a car and then tested. It is well known what changes will do to the handling in which direction, but how much is a method of successive approximations.

I have 19X9s on my car…not staggered and with the correct offset. Take a look at it here It https://www.scionlife.com/forums/album.php?albumid=2320
They are about as flush as you can get…

 

I remember your TC and we both have the same color by the way. Did you notice a difference in how the car accelerated with the 19s as opposed to the stock 18s? Does the steering response feel heavier with that big 19x9 up front? I am still on the fence about staying with 18s or going with 19s. My thoughts on the 19s is that I would not have to drop the car as low to fill the wells up.

 

You are asking the right questions…
If the wheel offset is correct, the “heaviness” of the steering will not change. Mine has not changed. Just think about it. All of the suspension loads go through the center of the contact patch (the area of the tire that meets the road). Your suspension is designed for that rotation to take place right at the center of that patch…very little power needed to rotate that tire. Yes I do have wider tires…but not a noticeable change for steering inputs. If the wheel is spaced out or in (or the offset of the wheel has changed) that puts an imbalance in the forces…call that steering loads.
As for acceleration, you have two enemies…weight (mass) and tire diameter. Since I got forged wheels, mine are lighter than the OEM wheels. My tire/wheel combination is lighter that the OEM tire/wheel! I also kept the OEM diameter…for acceleration and suspension geometry reasons. I should have better acceleration…it feels like it, but I have not quantified it. But the power is quite anemic with the NA engine. Cornering went through the roof though! And stopping distances went down significantly, but you do have to stand on the breakes a lot harder...I'm going to larger brakes later this month.
As for 18s or 19s, I understand that there is a wider selection of racing tires available for the 18s…since I’m not racing and I liked the look of the 19s and I really liked the Michelin tires available for the 19s, I went with 19s.
19s or 18s should not make any difference for your drop because they are the exact same diameter…I just have a shorter sidewall and better steering response because of that.

 

Thanks for all the input! I like to have as much information as possible when making decisions. I agree with you on the car being rather sluggish.

 

I am curious on something else I just noticed. How much does the offset matter? TRD has the 19x8 wheels for our TC with a +35 offset when stock is +39. I guess 4mm is not an issue.

 

I would say that 5-mm is the absolute maximum. Think of it like a crowbar, but you’ve got upwards of a 1,000-lbs on one end…this is taking into account some weight transfer. The more off you will be, the heavier your steering and the squirlier your handling will be. You will also probably be OK with a 25-mm change for the short term (the extra load on the bearings will ware them out faster) and if you don't care about handling. But I even compensating for 1-mm. I’ve got +40-mm offset on my wheels and I will be installing 1-mm shims behind each wheel bearing to compensate for that 1-mm difference. I also needed that extra bit for caliper brackets. This way all of my dimension will be back to OEM.

 

Ok,thanks again!

 

You don't have to race your car to feel the effects of understeer. Lets say, for accident avoidance, you might have a harder time transitioning the car from one lane to another with a staggered fit as the car will naturally want to transfer its weight forward and onto the narrower tire patch.

To each there own, but staggered on FWD is poser.

Now this whole discussion about offset has been beaten to death and I'm surprised that the same answers keep coming out of these discussions.

If you want your car to drive like stock, use a stock offset with a stock wheel width. If you want to change the dynamic of the car, you can alter your offset and width to achieve that. There is no rule that says "do not change your offset outside of stock or the world might implode." Offset is there to define your hub location in relation to the center line of the wheel.

However, if you want to change the width of your wheels/tires, you cannot rely on factory offset +/- 5mm to achieve a proper fitment. For this, you must take back spacing into account, which does not look solely at your wheel center line.

Its trial and error for fitments and what the resulting change may do to the car.

FYI, a 9" wide wheel with a +40 is not as flush as you can get. I run a 9.5" +42 (corrected based on my 3mm spacers) and that is about dead flush. But, it depends on what you consider flush really...lol.

 

I agree with you here on all points. I am just in the research mode right now and figuring out which way to go. I will not be staggering my wheels because I do tend more toward function over style.