Are 20 Inch Rims And Tires Becoming The Norm On Cars And Trucks?

What started out as a craze among car owners trying to out due one another has now become almost mainstream. Who would ever of thought that we would be at a time when the major car companies are now beginning to put 20 inch rims on the majority of their cars. Maybe they do not offer it on all of their cars and trucks yet but their is an option on a lot of them to purchase it. When the 20 inch rim came out you saw mainly low riders using them to hook up their cars. You would see a lot of them on older cars like Chevy Impalas, Buicks, Lincoln Continentals, and other classic cruising cars. Nobody would ever dream that you would put such a large rim for performance.

What is kind of funny is that a lot of the custom low riders would have smaller wheels on them like a 14 or 15 inch rim. They did this for a couple different reasons. To make the car stick out more with its custom paint job and to give it a feel in its normal riding stance of being lower to the ground. There was also a benefit of using the smaller rims for having hydraulics on the car. Many of these cars would scrape the ground and that’s what a lot of owners would want them to do.

Then there was a movement to putting the 20 inch rims and tires on these cars. This was how you told everybody of your status. These 20 inch rims and tires were not cheap. It is not uncommon to hear about them being sold for well over $2k for a set. So when you were spotted with custom chrome 20 inch rims on your ride it definitely said something about what you thought about your car.

The exotic and luxury car companies were the first to take notice of this movement towards the larger rims. When the first Cadillac Escalade came out it had 16 inch chrome rims and tires. In the short time frame that the Cadillac Escalade has been out it now comes standard with 20 inch rims and tires. Lexus has also followed suit with their flagship SUV, the LX470 and now the LX 570. Many people who were looking to buy these cars jumped at the opportunity and some saw it as the reason to now get the car because it had 20 inch rims and tires on it. The car manufacturers were losing out on the aftermarket game by not following what the custom car owners were doing.

Pretty much every single large SUV or truck produced right now has the option of upgrading to a set of oem 20 inch rims and tires. Its usually a significant increase in price over the regular oem rims and tires but it since it is becoming the must have for car owners they usually get it.

So now we have to ask ourselves if we are going to be happy with 20 inch rims. Are these going to be big enough to handle our need to have the biggest and the best thing. Only the market will tell. I’m sure that people are going to love how many looks they get with 20 inch rims on their car but when its time to replace the tires they are not going to be happy with that. Since the majority of rim and tire packages come with a mid to low profile tire you know that they are not going to be cheap.

Time will tell if the car manufacturers are going to start making 22 inch, 24 inch, and larger rims. It’s looking like this will have to be left to the aftermarket companies. The reason is because of the gas crisis going on. Nobody is buying the SUV’s and trucks because of their gas mileage and those are always the easiest to put a 20 inch rim on. With the focus going back to making smaller more fuel efficient cars it is going to be tricky to try and get a 20 inch wheel inside of a wheel well but I’m sure some engineers are going to find a way.