Different size wheels - does it do much damage

mcirl2

Hi,

I called an ad in the for a ford escort. 1999 €700 with 86k.

The owner said that when she bought it she discovered it had 1 13" wheel and 1 14" wheel on the front.

That kinda scared me - especially seen as she didnt know how long it was driven like that for. Would that do much damage?

She also said the speedo aint working but I think that wouldnt be a big problem?

Any advice would be great,

cheers,

Mike

rebel.ranter

There is always another car, walk away. If that's how "well" the owner took care of the car god knows what else "happened".
The overall rolling radius is what's important, in theory you could get very close by using the correct wheel tyre combination so that in effect a 13' wheel with a higher profile tyre & a 14' wheel with a lower profile tyre could have the same rolling radius.
I''m sure someone here will post a wheel tyre calculator to show a typical situation where the is true. There are loads of calculators on the net.

I know that it's a bad thing on a lot of modern cars with ASC/Traction Control to have tyres with different amounts of wear on eiter side of the car. A situation where this might happen is on a rear wheel drive car with barely legal tyres (i.e. just above the wear indicator) when it gets a puncture on one side. The tyre is unrepairable so the owner buys a new tyre, but only one. You then have a stuation where one side is new with a slightly larger circumference than the old tyre on the other side. This plays havoc with any electronic driver aids like TC/ASC (little light in dash comes on). Prior to cars having these electronic aids this problem would not have been immediately obvious. However all along the differential had to work that little bit harder to cope with the different rolling radii.
Similarly in 4x4 vehicles the problem could cause problems for the transfer box.
Is it going to be a problem in a 1999 Escort, why bother finding out? Get a diffrent one!

Stephen

Are cars of this vintage like motorbikes where the odometer doesn't keep counting when the speedo is broken?

Alun

Stephen wrote: »

Are cars of this vintage like motorbikes where the odometer doesn't keep counting when the speedo is broken?

If it's a cable driven analogue speedo, and it's the cable itself that's broken, then yes. They're both driven off the same cable AFAIK.

Anyway, I agree, walk away. Anyone who has that little concern for their car will probably have skimped on other things like oil changes etc.

colm_mcm

I think Escorts with mechanical speedos only go up to 99,999 miles, then they start at zero again. Different sized wheels would damage the gearbox diff I think

E92

Anyone who lets their car have different size wheels/tyres on their car(unless its a spare, but why would you sell a car with the spare on?) on the time clearly knows nothing about cars, ride comfort, handling etc and as such the car should be avoided like the plague.

If the owner hasn't bothered to tidy up a car when they're trying to sell it God only knows what kind of life its been through.

zilog_jones

colm_mcm wrote: »

I think Escorts with mechanical speedos only go up to 99,999 miles, then they start at zero again.

This is true - they use the same two instrument panels as the Mk. IV Fiestas (which I have) and they only have 5 digits.

I'm sure there's a lot more Escorts around, though thanks to their chronic depreciation I can't see much of them being well looked-after at this stage.

E92

Fords with a mechanical mileometer have only 5 digits if they are smaller than a Mondeo/Sierra, and 6 for Mondeos and bigger AFAIR.

JHMEG

13 and 14 inch wheels can have the same diameter if the side profile on the 13 is bigger. ie it's possible for the wheels to be the same size, even tho the rims are not.

Still tho, sounds sloppy. But for 700 euro it might not be too bad. Tho if it has that 1.3 pushrod engine.. well they're truly awful yokes.

mcirl2

Guys, thanks for all the advice!!!

The car isn 1999 and for 700ono and 86K. It is cheap but I think if they were that stupid to put diff size wheels on then god knows what else they did or didnt though.

I will look elsewhere.

Thanks a lot,

Mike

zilog_jones

mcirl2 wrote: »

It is cheap...

If an Escort isn't cheap it's a rip off

Tho if it has that 1.3 pushrod engine.. well they're truly awful yokes.

I have said "awful yoke" in my Fiesta, and people make it out to be a lot worse than it actually is. However I can't see it being able to do much in a heavier Escort. The 1.4 is a CVH, which is a pretty crappy motor too.

E92

JHMEG wrote: »

13 and 14 inch wheels can have the same diameter if the side profile on the 13 is bigger. ie it's possible for the wheels to be the same size, even tho the rims are not.

Still tho, sounds sloppy. But for 700 euro it might not be too bad. Tho if it has that 1.3 pushrod engine.. well they're truly awful yokes.

I just thought of something, could this be the only car on sale to have PAS for only one side:D?

Escorts on 13" wheels had no PAS. Escorts which had PAS had 14" wheels!

Anyway 1.3 Escorts have no PAS, another reason not to have one.