It’s time we talked about a subject close to all men’s hearts. And it is nearly always men that fret about this the most in my experience. Woman aren’t nearly as bothered as we menfolk like to imagine. But still, we just can’t help ourselves.
So, let me ask you a question. Would you pay £1,200 for an extra inch…you know…down there?
Most men would. Probably because we believe it will make us more manly. More attractive to potential partners. And maybe give our self confidence a boost. While I don’t think many of us would be so uncouth as to unnecessarily draw attention to our increased size, I think we’d like to imagine other men would notice too.
And performance concerns? What if I was to tell you the larger size could potentially improve your performance? Or at the very least not harm it? And all with zero downsides. All for just £1,200. You’d have to go for a deal like that, wouldn’t you?
Hell No! Are you nuts!
We are talking of course about Wheel Size.
Let me explain.
My Nissan Leaf Tekna electric car came standard with 17-inch wheels and Dunlop 215/50R17 EnaSave EC300 tyres. They looked pretty swanky and I have to admit they set the car off real nice on diamond-cut alloys. I thought they were perfect. That was until it came time to replace the worn-out originals. The cheapest I could find like-for-like replacements was £158.46 each from Asda (who knew?). At only 31,000 on the clock, these tyres should have lasted longer. But as I didn’t do the first 16,000 of these miles I have no idea what sort of heavy-footed troll had driven the car from new. I like to get 40,000/50,000 miles out of my tyres. They shoulda put that sucker in ‘Economy’ mode to tame the frankly outrageous levels of torque an electric Leaf delivers by default. Sure, if I had rotated the tyres a bit earlier I might have been able to extend the life out to 35,000 miles but that’s not good enough. Because this tyre size is ever so slightly less common the choice of tyres available becomes limited and the price more than doubles. There is no reason for such a huge price disparity. Waving the trusty Bullshit-Meter™ over this one confirmed it was a classic case of price segmentation and price differentiation and absolutely nothing to do with the cost of manufacture.
When I checked the price of my preferred Michelin Energy Savers in the far more common size of 205/55/R16 they were available from Amazon at £65.30 each. This is the standard size Nissan used to fit the Leaf with before they jazzed it up a bit at end-of-life. These particular tyres have excellent wet and dry grip and are known to last a long time, always coming near the top in independent testing. Most importantly, particularly so for an electric car, they have very low rolling resistance. The old wheels had to go.
Luckily the Leaf has been out for some time and so there is a plentiful supply of the more standard 16-inch wheels available from salvage. Just one more advantage of being on the trailing edge of new technology. The good people at Trends Savage sent me three 16-inch replacements and I got the forth off eBay. I had budgeted to get these cleaned up but they were so damned good on arrival I banked the extra saving. Swapping over the TPMS (Tyre Pressure Monitoring System) modules from the original wheels and fitting the tyres cost £93.60. The old wheels were sold on eBay and after all transaction costs raised £320.00 to count against the ‘downgrade’ cost.
All told the saving was ~ £300.00 over just replacing the original tyres with all subsequent tyre replacements cycles saving a further £320. Factoring in the expected extra life of these Michelin Energy tyres, plus the cheaper purchase price, over the estimated 100,000 miles I will drive in this car, the saving comes to a little over £1,200. The new wheels also have the advantage of being much less prone to corrosion and cosmetic damage than the diamond cut wheels. Not bad for about 2 hours work. And a lot more than the rate I get for my day job. I’ve bought I little bit of extra freedom from work.
How are the tyres working out? Well, the ride is a little better. The range seems unchanged. The handling still great. I can hardly tell the difference if I’m honest. Maybe I would if I hopped from a car on 16-inch wheels to an otherwise identical one on 17-inch wheels. And then back again to confirm I wasn’t just imagining a difference.
Have I ever done that? No.
Will I ever do that? No.
So, that shit doesn’t matter. Imagining some small difference, for the better or worse, is a classic case of Exaggerated Small Difference Syndrome.
And you know what is the best thing about all this? If I hadn’t told the wife about the reduction in size, I don’t think she would have even noticed the difference. You’ll be pleased to hear she remains as satisfied as ever.
So, it just goes to show boys. Stop worrying about your size. It’s silly.
The Bullmeister