hey guys.. right now i'm running stock 205/45/17 now i was wondering how much wider i could go? and is anyone running wider tires on stock 17s? and i was wondering if i got spacers would my turning radius suffer?

 

Are you thinking of widerning the track or going to a wider tire or both? If you want to do both, do it one at a time to see the difference.

I run 215/45/17 on a r56 and it gives better grip but does reduce the mpg. So better is relative. BTW, tire choice is perhaps just as important if not more. Depends on what your objective is.

No spacers at this time.

 

225 is about the widest you can go without rubbing the strut body. There is a decent amount of room in stock form.

 

I used 215/40-17 on the stock wheels. I then went to a 38mm offset wheel and still had 215/40-17 on a H&R spring lowered 2003 MCS with only slightly rubbing in the rear. Using a 38mm offset wheel is like adding a 15mm spacer so there is quite a bit of room for wider tires, spacers, or different offset wheels. The tire width will usually be limited by the stock wheel width.

 

Using stock suspension and stock 17x7 wheels

215/45-17 will work.

215/40-17 will also work but it is smaller than stock tire diameter so this increases wheel gap.

Some owners report that 225/45-17 can work but you do risk rubbing since this is larger than stock tire diameter AND much wider.

There is no need to add spacers given stock wheels up to 215mm wide tires.

A 225 mm wide tire doesn't give you many choices for a 17x7 wheel.

If you had a 17x8 wheel with +40mm offset you could run a wider than 225mm tire and do OK.

Other than looks there isn't a pressing reason to look at wider tires if you do normal street driving. For performance driving probably better than wider is to go with something with a lower and stiffer sidewall profile.

 

For performance driving, better yet is to go with a smaller diameter wheel because that generally gives you lower unsprung weight. That translates to a taller profile tire, but where you may loose in sidewall stiffness, you gain more in traction because the tires stay planted to the driving surface better.

 

Also, the wider the tire, the more abruptly they can loose grip. They will grip like mad untill the limit, then let go.

Narrower tires have better steering responce too.

 

wow didnt know tires were that important.. didnt realize that wider would eat my mpg...