Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Bowtie
One critical qualifier is missing from that statement. It would be important to mention "At the same inflation" because that is the only condition under which it is true.
As experienced people may have come to know, wider tires require less inflation to support a given load. THAT'S where the footprint increases and the traction advantage begins.
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This is the most accurate information in the whole thread.
The pressure inside the tire matches the pressure outside the tire. The main factors in determining the size of the contact patch are the tire pressure and the weight of the vehicle. A 3000lb car with 30psi of pressure in each tire is going to have a total of 100 square inches of contact. With equal weight distribution, that's 25 square inches per tire. If you took that same car, and lowered the rear tires to 20psi, they'd have 37.5 square inches of contact patch... a 50% increase.