Tyre sizes; what would you do?

[marge602]

Morning folks.

The time is almost here to replace the rear tyres on my Beat. I have a mate in the trade who can get tyres cheap, but my car has oversized 185s on it, which look good but aren't really correct. Apparently, there's no difference in price between these and the standard 165s, so what would you do? More rubber on the road and some chunky looks, or trust the Mighty H's development team and go back to standard? Am leaning towards the latter, but thought i'd see what you guys think. Have included a pic of the current 185s.

Marge

[Steve_M]

Id put the standard size tyre on, as to be honest the extra drag from more tyre on road would not be advantage. Rear end break away wont be a problem, not even in the wet really. Front end is where you need more/good grip to counter act understeer, unfortunately tyres in UK dont come in H rated for front size, but a good make T is required rather than budgets.

HTH

[Midship]

165 all the way.....

[imi]

Yup deffinetly 165

[Yojimbo!]

Kumho do a H rated front…

http://www.mytyres.co.uk/start.html

[Bruce]

Definitely 165. The tyre will sit more securely on the wheel, with less flexure of the tyre's side wall, so you will have tighter, less vague handling.

I don't see the fuss over H vs T speed rating - T is fine at 118mph, so there is no need to go to the 130mph H. I am guessing that an H would be stronger and therefore heavier, so probably undesirable in fact.

After a lot of research, I recommend the Continental EcoContact 3. You can easily get it in the rear's standard size, but I cannot find the 155 front anywhere, and yet Continental's website lists the 155 as available. Hopefully it will become available by the time my fronts wear down.

Bruce

[Steve_M]

I don't see the fuss over H vs T speed rating - T is fine at 118mph, so there is no need to go to the 130mph H. I am guessing that an H would be stronger and therefore heavier, so probably undesirable in fact.

Stiffer side walls on H rated tyres. so less tyre flex.

[bottbeat]

I'm looking to put wider tyres on my Beat, noticed you had 185's on rear, was this on a 14" and if you had 13" wheels on front what size tyre did you go to...was it a 175?

[Siu]

I have use bigger size rim and tyre. The power gone down but nice look. My size for front is 185/50 R15 and rear with 205/45 R16. For me as long as it look nice........

[JamesJT]

On standard size tyres the car gently four-wheel drifts round 50mph bends, that's why it's fun. Big fat tyres would ruin a beat, it would be all grip and no handling. What about aquaplaning on 205's?

James