[T3] changing tire size

[Jim Adney]

On 22 Jan 2014 at 17:42, Max Welton wrote:

> Yes they will absolutely fit. My snow tires are 195/65/15 Blizzaks and my summer 
> tires are 205/65/15s. I use 20 psi in the front and 30 psi in the rears for both sizes.

Certainly they will FIT. You can force any tire of the right diameter 
onto a rim. The real question is whether they will work well with 
those rims. 

Think of the tires as a parallelogram. If the rim is too small, the 
parallelogram becomes a trapezoid. Now imagine what happens when you 
take that trapezoid around a corner. The tread tips up, and you only 
have the outside corner of tread on the ground.

Sure, for straight line driving there's no problem. But for handling, 
which to me means what happens when you try to turn, wide tires on 
narrow rims are a fashion statement and a handling disaster.

Tire manufacturers have charts that show preferred, allowable, and 
forbidden rim widths for each tire size. There's good reasoning 
behind this.

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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