Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Wheels & Tires Will it look right?

I have a 99' Mystique with the 205/60/15 tires. I plan on getting a set of Kumho's but they are 205/55/15's I was told they will fit, but will they make my wheel wells look empty because of them being 55' instead of 60's. Does any one have pics of 205/55/15's with the car not lowered.
Thanks in advance........Brad :rolleyes:

The 55 series no doubt will fit but you will be sure to get uneven tread wear. The reason for this is you are trying to fit a wide tire on a narrow rim.
It would look better to use a 16" rim and match them with some low profile performance tires. If you can't afford that, then stay with the 205/60/15".
Using the 205/55/15 on stock rims will only look tacky.
That's my opinion.
:rolleyes:

Hay Fuji thanks for your post. I posted before to see if the 55's would fit the rims and someone posted back that it would and they were running 55's on their factory rims. Well I don't want to spend good money for uneven wear.
Thanks...Brad

I get good traction with my 15's. If you have the Firestones get some new tires. Those tires are crap. I now have Yokohamas.

I would tend to disagree with the claim about uneven tire wear resulting from replacing a 60 series tire with a 55 series tire.
You state the only change you are making from the OEM tire is just the aspect ratio; e.g. 60 to 55 but everything else remains identical; e.g. section width (205) & diameter (15").
Therefore you are not significantly, if at all, increasing the tread width of your combination & no tread wear problems will result. It is fairly common to jump around between aspect ratios & section widths upon the same diameter wheel while still retaining an acceptable combination of the three. Just so long as you don't get carried away & attempt to run too wide or too narrow a tire on the OEM rim which will indeed cause problems as the sidewall will be distorted in both instances.
The difference in overall height of the wheel/tire combination between a 60 & 55 aspect ratio is pretty miniscule so you should be perfectly fine in regards to appearance as well as performance.

For more information, check out www.tirerack.com & search their technical information pages.

Hello SVT: The thought of little difference between 55 and 60 series I will excuse you for your ignorance. The difference in width can vary about 1" between a 205/60/15 & 205/55/15 tire.The rim width for a 205/55/15 tire should be 6.5" to 7.5" ideally.
Using a narrow rim will cause the tire tread to wear at the center quicker.

I was told that 205 is the width and 60 or 55 is sidewall hidth. So the 55's should only have a smaller sidewall not wider because it is still 205 so the with is the same.
Brad

It seems the only way that I will convince you that 205/55/15 is wider than the 205/60/15 is that you will have to see them side by side and then see for yourself.

Yeah I'd like to see that myself. 205 is the tread with. Not the rim width. 55 is the height and 15 is the rim size. Can't see your logic in 1" difference on a 10mm tread size.

Which Kumho tire are you looking at? I'm pretty sure that the 716 comes in the 205/60R15 size.

The 55 tire is enough smaller in diameter that it will throw off your speedometer. It would be helpful to look up a tire calculator to see the difference. I used to have one bookmarked, but I lost it when my computer crashed a few months ago. Perhaps someone else has the URL for one.

Most tire spec charts give the tire specs along with the optimal rim width. They usually also provide a rim width acceptable range. The other specs, tire width, tire height, etc, are based on the optimal rim width. A wider or narrower rim will throw off the other measurements. A tire on a rim that is narrower than the optimal width will tend to wear in the center more. As long as the rim is still in the acceptable range, the center wear may not be significantly different. You may be able to partually compensate with slighltly lower tire pressure, but that is not really a good answer. My experience has been if the optimal width is within 1/2" of actual rim width, it is not significant. Anything more than 1/2" might be.