Anyone knows?
Some FWDs are really front-heavy with 62% on front but since recommended tire pressure is 35psi F/R it cannot be too much off, should be close to 50/50.
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Anyone knows?
Some FWDs are really front-heavy with 62% on front but since recommended tire pressure is 35psi F/R it cannot be too much off, should be close to 50/50.
My Daihatsu has 62.6/37.4 % weight distribution and 2.0/2.0 bar tire pressure. I think the Space Star has over 60 % on front, too, because tire pressure has nothing to say about weight distribution of the unloaded car. Only if you drive with 4 persons and a full trunk, you will have a weight distribution near to 50/50 %.
I can only tell you that my rear tires are badly worn after my roadtrip. However, this was because my Dolly was fully loaded in the rear and I also had a heavy cargo rack hooked up. The two adults in the front didn't have that impact. I guess the it was more like 30/70 in that scenario.
Your tire wear on the rear tires may be due to misalignment. Have you had that checked?
Bumping for info. :)
So I finally figured it out. Took 2 pieces of paper, stuck in front/rear of tire contact patch, made the measurements.
If my math is correct the distribution is 54%/46%, f/r. Kinda goes against what we know about FWDs but then makes sense when you pop the hood an start looking for engine. This is on 5mt btw.
Calculating weight distribution with the tire contact patch? No, I canīt believe this will work unless you measured the contact patch of the specific tire with the specific tyre pressure for a lot of different loads - at least in 5-10 kg steps.
After all I found results of Auto Bild for the 1.0 liter version: 62% front, 38% rear.
Seems plausible, because more than 60 % on the front is really usual for a car like the Mirage. The other tested cars - Kia Picanto, Peugeot 108 - have weight distributions of 61% respectively 62% on the front and as I wrote above, my Daihatsu has 62.6% on the front.
Well it is the same tire so width is the same and it is easy to set the same pressure.
Contact patch area proportional to contact patch length, easy to do math. Maybe not accurate but good for rough estimate
But contact patch area does not even close behave linear to the load of the tire, as you can see on this page. Therefore you really would have to determine contact patch area in very small steps for the specific tire and tire pressure before measuring it on a car.
If I put 165/50 R15 with 2.5 bar on my Daihatsu, the rear tires only touch the ground in a very small area, only about half the with of the tire. Then even 1 mm more or less tire tread would have a very big influence, too.
If you have more than 60 % on the front tires, maximum transferable power is as big as if you would have 50 % on a rear-wheel drive car. In the winter, it is positive, too, to have maximum weight on the front axle. Therefore, there is nothing bad about having maximum weight on the front tires. Handling can be influenced a lot with the chassis setting and only changing the springs can make a very big difference.
I read in the Mirage specs somewhere that it is 61/39.