4matics and staggared wheels/tires

[garik]

i ve upgraded wheels and tires on our c240 "4matic" and installed staggered...

last night we dropped it off for service and today service guy calls and says that staggered set on 4matics will mess up the transfer case.

does any one else have more information on this?

the car drives fine... took it to the mountains on ice or deep snow... no problems; but will it actually mess something up?

thank you

[Jayhawk]

Yes, it will mess something up! From all I've heard you cannot run a staggered setup on a FWD. Do a search or post this question on the Tirerack forum here and Luke explain it to you...

Here's a thread you might want to look at: http://www.benzworld.org/forums/tire...aggered+wheels

[asianml]

Yeah, from what I've read the previous gen 4Matics can't take staggered setups.

[MarcusF]

They don't like staggered wheels (where the wheels have different widths front to rear), or they don't like mismatched rolling circumferences? I understand why the front and rear tires are required to have the same revolutions per mile, but how does the transfer case know the difference in the wheel widths?

[MB-SV]

Originally Posted by MarcusF

They don't like staggered wheels (where the wheels have different widths front to rear), or they don't like mismatched rolling circumferences? I understand why the front and rear tires are required to have the same revolutions per mile, but how does the transfer case know the difference in the wheel widths?

I agree. The key is to match rolling diameter/circumferences.

[garik]

thanks for replies...

intresting is that i find a lot of information that prove both... but ???

i like the way the car looks now, and i already purchased winter tires for OEM wheels.

so what i have is 225/45R17 in front and 235/45R17 in the rear.

the diff is 1.4%

i would love to keep it this way, but i dont want to mess up anything on the car. egh...

should i look for another set? (4 same wheel/tires)
should i just ignore dealer?
should i worry that i will soon need to replace some "expensive" parts?

thanks for all the help

[Jayhawk]

Originally Posted by garik

thanks for replies...

intresting is that i find a lot of information that prove both... but ???

i like the way the car looks now, and i already purchased winter tires for OEM wheels.

so what i have is 225/45R17 in front and 235/45R17 in the rear.

the diff is 1.4%

i would love to keep it this way, but i dont want to mess up anything on the car. egh...

should i look for another set? (4 same wheel/tires)
should i just ignore dealer?
should i worry that i will soon need to replace some "expensive" parts?

thanks for all the help

Do # 1 or # 3...

[MB-SV]

I wouldn't worry about it. Notice in the owners manual that there is nothing definite on this subject (I checked my ML and C-class manuals).

[Tri-Star]

I heard the same thing so to be safe I went with an 18 inch non-staggered set up although my friend is running 19s staggered and hasn't had any problems yet.