By Keith F on Monday, July 09, 2001 - 10:50 am: Edit

Just bought a 2000 Disco w/ Ace and am looking for new tires for the fall. The vehicle came with Goodyear HP's and living in Pak City Utah I am looking for something a little more winter capable but want to stay with the 18 inch rims.
Any advise??

Keith

By carl on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 02:34 am: Edit

I went to the Michelins and they are much better! I am switching to 16" next month for the better tire selections.

By David on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 03:00 am: Edit

Keith,
If you hear anything, please let me know. I would like to stick to the rims too, but it seems nobody makes larger tires for that rim. I'm frustrated to the point that I think I'm going to break down and get the 16" rims unless I hear otherwise.
Some other questions I have:
How many inches of lift can you safely put on an ACE vehicle?
Is the install as easy as that of a regular vehicle setup?

By LR Dealer on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 06:23 am: Edit

Be VERY careful when switching tires or wheels. ACE cars are ONLY designed to work with the tire/rim combo that are sold with the vehicle. You will void TONS of warranties by switching.

By CB on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 06:25 am: Edit

Uk spec D2 are available with 16 inch. LRNA is 18 inch insistent.

By KEITH F on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 06:38 am: Edit

CARL, WHERE DID YOU GET THE MICHELINS IN THE 255-55-18'S?? WHAT PRICE?? DID YOU HAVE GOOGYEAR HP'S ON THERE BEFORE??

By David on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 06:41 am: Edit

LR Dealer,
You can either void THE warranty, or not void the warranty. It's simple. Whether or not a particular dealer decides you've voided the warranty is another issue.

ACE vehicles are not designed to only work with the tire rim combo. As many dealers readily swap the 18's for the 16's usually at no extra cost since the 18's are worth more on the accessory market.

I can't wait to "void TONS of warranties"....

By other LR Dealer on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 09:20 am: Edit

switching from 18" to 16" wheels will NOT void the warranty...its been done plenty of times...the only thing the 18" wheel does is give the American consumer a visual reason to spend $3000. That would be a tough sell here without them...

By LR Dealer on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 09:30 am: Edit

Actually, you can void parts of the warranty without voiding the ENTIRE warranty. For instance, if you put on a non-approved lift, you'll void parts of the driveline warranty. So... each individal part or related set of parts has, in effect, its own warranty. Additionally, there are multiple warranties working on any vehicle: federal emissions, corrosion perforation, factory warranty, state warranties, SRS warranties.
US specs are vastly different from Euro specs, and warranties are very different as well. US crash tests, etc., are only valid for ACE cars with 18" rims. AND, if you know of a dealer that is putting 16" wheels on an ACE car, they should be turned in. You can put 18"s on a non-ACE car, no problem, but NOT the other way around. LRNA will not sell ACE Discos with 16" rims. If you take the recent Trek Discos as an example, during the event, they ran BFG's on 16"s. When they sold them back to the public, they kept everything the same except for the wheels. They went on the market with 18"s and Goodyears.

By chuanchen on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 11:23 am: Edit

have read an article from LR UK (my rellection). it's strongly not recommended to switch 18" to 16" on a ACE disco II. the reason is logical. While cornering, before ACE is activated, the 16" tires would recieve the pressure from the G force and get squeezed and, possibly roll-over. the pressure of tires during cornering that LR engineered ACE system based on is within a certain range of amount, which is what 18" can provide. 16" tires are much softer and have more air volume to absorb presure. so, if you use 16" tires on ACE disco, your car will start to roll and, the ACE gets activated while the tires have been squeezed for a while and ACE will squeeze the tires more. all these make the car roll more, even than regular Disco II withour ACE. it's dangerous.

Unless you don't like ACE.

ChuanChen

By Ron on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 11:26 am: Edit

And exactly how much do you think the sidewall of an E load rated 10ply BFG or dunlop will compress at 50psi?

ron

So everyone with ACE in oz is rolling over

By chuanchen on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 11:33 am: Edit

well, it would be very dangerous if the driver does emergent cornering on ACE 16" rims by doing the way he/she is used to for ACE 18" rims disco.

Just for people to think about.

chuanchen

By chuanchen on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 11:39 am: Edit

Ron

if you have visually observed how much the sidewall of the tires get compressed when one of the tires on an axle bears most of the load on an axle during off-road, you would visualize how much it'll get compressed during emergent cornering.

chuanchen

By Keith F on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 11:40 am: Edit

Let at least admit one thing. The DII handles a lot better at highway speeds with ACE and 16 versus 18 inch rubber has a lot to do with it. My DII is the "family truckster", my wife drives around town and on the highway every day with my 18 month old son. They are safer with ACE and 18 inch rubber....unless she makes a wrong turn and ends up in the Camel Series!
Mi Dos centavos.

By Ron on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 11:42 am: Edit

Offroad you are aired down. If you use an E rated tire and inflat it to something arounf 50-60psi (max is usually 80 on an E rated tire) you will get very little compression under any kind of loads present in a situation with ACE. Outside the US MOST ACE DIIs have 16in wheels.

Ron

By chrisvonc on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 11:51 am: Edit

If LR says its a huge no-no to put 16" wheels on and ACE car, then why were they be running them on all the TReK trucks during the events?

By Keith F on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 12:05 pm: Edit

This is the same old all-wheel drive warranty crap that we used to see on the Audiworld chat room. I have an A4 Quattro and we change tire sized at the drop of a hat. The new A4's have cornering control and Quattro and guys switch from 16 inch to 19 inch all the time. I think the systems automatically adjust for the changes. I'm not as technically savy as those above me.....who wants pie?

By chuanchen on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 12:46 pm: Edit

Yes. Theoretically, if the rigidity of tire+rim that you will be using is no less than the stuck spec tire+rim on an ACE disco, it¡¦ll be fine. However, the rigidity is not proportional to the tire pressure. it¡¦s also proportional to the size of tire. The larger the sidewall is, the harder you can get rigidity for the tire by increasing the pressure of tire. The Active Cornering Enhancement system sensors the G force from the wheel, which is transferred from the ground via the rigidity of tire. If the rigidity if tyre is not enough, only a percentage of G force can be transferred to the ACE system, then ACE only gets activated when enough G is reached on ACE system. However, before this moment, the force between tire and ground is already over the max G force that can make the car roll over.

Those BIG FOOT trucks with giant tires are good samples. The tire pressure of them is extremely high. They still roll over very easily, more than regular trucks.

chuanchen

By D II on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 01:01 pm: Edit

Does ACE sense g-force or just merely the leaning of the vehicle or the angle of departure from level??

By Isaac on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 02:01 pm: Edit

both. but G force is the determinant.

Isaac

By Mike Holland on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 - 03:00 pm: Edit

the ace system uses two accelorometers that sense lateral acceleration. One is in the passenger side roof and the other is in the passenger side rocker panel. The ace system is designed to virtually eliminate body roll up to a lateral acceleration of .4 Gs and then to allow a progressivly higher amount of body roll as lateral acceleration increases. The danger with higher profile tires such as an offroad tire on a 16 inch rim is the tire rolling off the rim. The ace system is going to react as it was designed to react regardless of tire choice. Having driven quite a few ace trucks i would be hesitant to push one around a corner with anything less than the 18 inch wheels and tires. the flip side of all this of course is that ace promotes articulation while in low range so it would seem to be a prime candidate for an offroad build up. You would just have to control yourself while on the pavement.

By Joe Cole on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 02:17 am: Edit

Has anyone used pirelli scorpion's?

By Joe Cole on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 02:26 am: Edit

I have another thought, are all of us with DII's just idiots? I am not sure I want to know the answer. I bought mine used about four months ago. since then i have ben on this site daily taking it all in . I do enjoy everyones experiences. I have not done any off roading except for local dealer hosted events.What would be some of the safe mods to do with our rigs?

By David on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 03:16 am: Edit

Joe,
I bought mine used 6 months ago as well. '00 with Ace. I'm planning on switching tires as soon as mine wear down to the point that I can personnally justify spending the money. When I do that, I will likewise add an inch or two in lift as well.
Not sure if you know, but their is a disco2owners group in yahoo groups. Lot's of info is passed on about mods there. so you should consider joining in. I will say that if you particpate in the group, and get more offroading time in. You'll find new reasons for enjoying your rig.

I highly doubt that those of us who bought the Ace vehicles are idiots. I have my reasons for buying mine, namely better handling and articulation offroad. These aren't sports cars, so the only time I anticipate having to quick veer my truck is in a traffic situation. I don't plow into corners at speed. I accept the risk that upgrading tires and to 16" rims will pose, because I believe that if I veer and roll, the truck would probably do it anyway. Regardless of 16 or 18 inch rims...

As for mods, again, you'll run the gammit on people's opinions. Namely, those of the dealer/warranty, versus the rover owner. But the same goes for any vehicle you own.
CDL is on my list of things to do before next weekend....

By Joe Cole on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 06:08 am: Edit

David, Thanks for the yahoo info. My truck does have ACE and I too was thinking of going to the 16" wheels. I just don't read too many posts about DII's with Ace and how these are affected by some of the more popular non-ACE DI's.

By Blue Gill (Bluegill) on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 06:44 am: Edit

Of course 16" wheel/tire setup will sidewall-flex and "sidewall-roll" more than the 18" wheel/tire combo, but the important question is: is it enough to make a damn bit of difference? I really don't think so. Yes, the 16" will handle differently than the 18", but we have adaptive brains to deal with that. Feel free to disagree, I'm simply going off my experiences with different wheel/tire combos on past sports cars and 4X4's.

The official LRNA hubub about swapping 18" for 16" revolves around liability concerns, as does everything official in the USA. LRNA's room full of over-paid attorneys (and Ford's even bigger room full) all say "don't do it" because some idiot will sue (successfully) when his dealer-equipped ACE 16-incher flips after he takes a 90 degree corner at 100mph. The guys in the trenches at the dealerships know better, and they do it because those 18" chromies are worth their weight in gold.

ACE is certainly nice, but if you are pushing your DII to the cornering limits on the racetrack, and you are therefore concerned about "losing it" with 16-inchers, then you've purchased the wrong vehicle, my friend. If you do any serious off-roading, you'll lose the 18-inchers one way or the other. Also, warranties are subjective, to a certain extent - if the dealer wants to honor the warranty on your lifted, ACE-equipped, 16-incher, then he will (unless, of course, supernarc turns him in first).

just my opinions...

By David on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 06:45 am: Edit

Joe, I agree with you. Join the yahoo egroup. You'll find more DII content as well as far more ACE owners ;-)

By David on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 - 06:53 am: Edit

Amen Blue Gill....