Car companies to limit wheel, tyre options?

Graeme Gambold has a message for 'tuners': Their love affair with large wheels and low-profile tyres could be in trouble.

Gambold, who heads up his own consultancy assisting companies such as Toyota to test its product range against competitors, explained to the local media yesterday that the never-ending quest for a more sophisticated and capable stability control system may have an unintended side effect: the reduction in homologated wheel and tyre options for new cars.

"It's one of my worries -- a bit -- because we're going to mandate ESP in this country on every car. There's a lot of people who then go and put different tyres on, different wheel sizes, change the centre of gravity of the car, go from a summer tyre to a winter tyre -- and all the software strategy is not written for that stuff. Modifying vehicles will be a real cow, won't it?

"A very big part of our business comes from the likes of HSV and that, because every time they put out a new model they've got to change the calibration that the standard Commodores have got...

"Toyota Motor Corporation might come down and change to Brembo brakes on one of the Lexus models; they've got to recalibrate the whole system. After-market modification and model variation will be an issue -- and I think that will reflect on the motor companies in that they'll have to rationalise the models.

"I've already seen it; I've got a client that's looking at pulling some variants out of various global markets, because they just haven't got the resource to do a 17-, an 18- and a 19-inch wheel..."

Gambold's comments came at the end of the day track-testing the Toyota Camry Hybrid and three competitors at the motorcycle track at Broadford, north of Melbourne. Much of the testing concentrated on stability control systems fitted to the four cars and how

Gambold admitted as far as he knows, there are no pending standards planned to accompany the introduction of mandatory stability control by the Victorian government with effect from January of next year.

But should the aftermarket suppliers of wheels and tyres consider the common-law implications of fitting a 20- or 22-inch wheel to an Audi A6, for example, when the Audi is only approved within the framework of Australian Design Rules for wheels up to 19-inch diameter?

If it can be proved that an A6's braking and stability were compromised by fitting wheels not homologated by the federal government, could the suppliers and fitters of the wheels be held liable for the consequences of a crash? The supplier might not have been deliberately flouting the law, but if the terms of the SUTI approval (Single Uniform Type Inspection) for the specific vehicle changed with the advent of mandatory stability control fitment, aftermarket suppliers could be left hanging out to dry. Such a case might be hard to prove, but is any company brave enough to take that chance?

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