And it's not only about the price of oversized tires or more likely damage to the rims due to potholes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYvKxsYFqO8
(engineering explained)
Somewhat a blanket statement.
You can get bigger/wider wheels that weigh LESS (or same) as the OEM stuff.
For a rotational mass like a wheel, linear mass doesn't really count for much. Well, it does for unsprung mass, but weight distribution is equally important.
A bigger wheel and its tire will have more of its mass close to the outside of the whole assembly. This increase the moment of inertia. This is basically what mass is(resistance to a force), but in angular acceleration.
So even if a bigger wheel weighs the same as the smaller wheel, it will likely has a higher moment of inertia and thus, it will cost you more energy to accelerate with it and more energy to stop it.
Would love to see the actual calculation.
In the one example I recall, 245/40/18 vs. 255/35/19 TOTAL wheel/tire weight was 3lbs. a corner less on the 19". Rolling diameter about the same.
Sadly, I don't recall TOTAL wheel/tire weight.
Well I would be more curious to see the weight distribution rather than just the (linear) mass. The function of moment of inertia is proportional to the square of distance of the mass from the axis of rotation, so distance(weight distribution) has more impact on moment of inertia. I don't know how you can get the weight distribution of a wheel, but weighing the tires by themself could be a start(it is the farther from the centre of a wheel).
It's like a flywheel. Some flywheels have a greater mass but with how the mass is distributed, it may actually end up being more responsive, which is what really matters for anyone modding a flywheel.
Jason also mentioned that his math can be a bit rough, specifically the last one which is a bit of a back-of-envelope calculations. Either way, I have 20” rim with 285+ width tires on my Camaro SS 1LE so I should shut up, LOL.
Speaking of the Camaro SS 1LE, I log the fuel economy of it in Fuelly and I noticed that the in-car display is always about 10% less than the actual fuel consumption. I wonder if the fuel economy calculations are based on the standard SS tires that are thinner and likely less sticky. Just thinking out loud here.