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Going from 16" wheels to 17" wheels, what tire size to get?


91LuminaEuro

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So I finally got the wheel situation figured out for the monte, and have a set of 17x7 chrome wheels coming. Now i need to start looking at tires, so i can save up some money this winter so i can put the new wheels on first thing this spring. My question is, the factory tire size is: 225 60 16" What would i need to get in a 17" tire to keep the speedo some-what on track, w/o having to program the computer? I'm terrible at figuring this stuff out.

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I don't think you're going to have a problem with upping a tire size a small amount. I'd go with something wider than a 225 IMO. They look dumb on our cars stock, I can't stand how skinny they look on mine. I'd look into a 245

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If your Monte isn't lowered I'd go with a 245/45(or 50)/17. What offset are the 17's? I try to keep a wider offset on w-bodies so it sits more flush with the lip of the fenders, like a 35mm offset. That's just what I like though

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i went from 215/60/16 stock to 235/45/17. that doesn't exactly answer your question, but a decent tire website should have the proper size recommended for your upgrade. i used discounttiredirect.com

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BGA is correct.

 

If you're going 17's, the textbook correct size is . . . . 225/55R17's.

 

Here's some help & I'm not so sure you know all of this so ignore if you do:

 

First number is treadwidth in millimeters (you can't avoid the metric system!!). Second is the sidewall and instead of a fixed number, it's a ratio . . . so the 60's on your stockers means that the sidewall is 135mm (225 X 60%).

 

Here is my simple way of looking at this (it's not an exact science for super-fat rims and odd applications, but as long as you're not going nuts with 24" rims or 325 treadwidth) it's pretty universal.

 

 

Ready???

 

 

You can select any rim size, and any treadwidth size you fancy or you see that's on sale or cheap on Craigslist.

 

 

*For every size of rim you go up or down, you add or subtract 5 to the sidewall number (so if you go from 16" to 17", you subtract 5, 18" would be subtract 10, and 15" would be add 5)

 

*For every 10mm of tread you add, you can remove 5 from the sidewall, remove 10mm of treadwidth and you add 5 to the sidewall.

 

As a bonus to make your car look cool (lower sidewall ` profile makes the rimz look bigger), you can go down another extra 5 on the sidewall. But your speedo will be out approx 3.5%.

 

 

Does this guide make sense??? Or does your head hurt from reading it??

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I would definitely go wider and lower profile than 225/55.....

 

235/55 might be too tall, 235/50 are not very common and/or are significantly more expensive (trust me, I've been looking for them for my father-in-law's Azera), and 245/45 may be too wide for some people and depending on the tire, may be too wide for the rim. I run 245/45s and I'd rather be running 235 wide tires. I have about 1/4" between the edge of the tire and the coilover spring. Its extremely close.

 

They also seem to roll a bit more than the 235/45 tires I had on there previously did. I don't know if that has to do with the taller sidewall, but Bob did warn me that it would be worse with a 245/45 than it would with a 225/55. I also have a 17x7 rim.

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235/55 might be too tall, 235/50 are not very common and/or are significantly more expensive (trust me, I've been looking for them for my father-in-law's Azera), and 245/45 may be too wide for some people and depending on the tire, may be too wide for the rim. I run 245/45s and I'd rather be running 235 wide tires. I have about 1/4" between the edge of the tire and the coilover spring. Its extremely close.

 

They also seem to roll a bit more than the 235/45 tires I had on there previously did. I don't know if that has to do with the taller sidewall, but Bob did warn me that it would be worse with a 245/45 than it would with a 225/55. I also have a 17x7 rim.

 

I guess it's all in the offset then, because I ran 245/45/17s on a 17x8 wheel with zero problems :shrug: ...I personally wouldn't run a 245 on a 7" wide wheel anyway...

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Awesome! Thanks for the input everyone! Breakdown that makes perfect sense! The size im looking at is the 225/55 but i will look at some other depending on what i can get. I dont want anything too low profile, i hate wheels that look like they just have a rubber band for a tire, I like some side wall. Or a 235/55 wouldnt be bad either.

Edited by 91LuminaEuro
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I guess it's all in the offset then, because I ran 245/45/17s on a 17x8 wheel with zero problems :shrug: ...I personally wouldn't run a 245 on a 7" wide wheel anyway...

 

Right. I'm guessing you may also have run these on a grand prix. The Regal doesn't have the same wheel arches, so using an x-lace equivalent wheel would stick out a bit. As it is, the wheels I have now with the 245 tires barely tuck inside the wheelwells. I was avoiding running a 235/45 due to the smaller diameter and the resulting wheelwell gap. I wanted it to look lowered without having under 1" of suspension travel.

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the particular wheel/tire combo I had was on every model 1st gen w-body (..'94 GP, '92 Lumina, 97 cutlass....) except a regal, as I haven't had one of those yet :) ...maybe someday I will find a nice '96 GS that I can top swap though...

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I went with 235/45/17 with my new setup. Even though mines lowered. Wheel gap really isnt that noticable over the stock size...

 

306252_2240057168178_1450512226_2381037_1299972_n.jpg

 

What does it look like straight from the side? Once the tread started to wear out a bit, the tire simply looked too small. This is also a 235/45/17.

 

IMG_0456.jpg

Edited by xtremerevolution
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Thats the only picture I have with those rims on. Main reason why I went with that size, is because thats the closest tire size to stock I could get in these specific tires.

 

How worn out are those tires?

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Thats the only picture I have with those rims on. Main reason why I went with that size, is because thats the closest tire size to stock I could get in these specific tires.

 

How worn out are those tires?

 

About 1/4 tread remaining in that picture. I took them in Fall of last year. I ran winter tires that winter and put them back for another 6k miles in the spring before replacing them with my current 245/45/17 tires. The new tires are closer in size to the factory tires.

 

Sent from my HTC Awesome using Tapatalk

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