205/50/17 Snow tires on stock wheels?

[hdave]

Hi Guys

I am looking for winter tires and was wondering if anyone has tried 205/50/17 tires on the stock wheels?
The overall diameter is just slightly larger which should not be a problem at all, and the tire is slightly thinner which also shouldn't be a problem.
But do you think this would cause the wheel lip to stick out further than the tire?
Has anyone tried it?

Thanks,
Harsh

[Wass]

I have the 16" option wheels and tyres which use the 205/55 profile as standard fitting. There's no problem with the narrower tyre at all, ride quality is better than standard, Using a higher profile and narrower than your standard 215/45-17 will have the overall effect of increasing the overall diameter of the tyre on the car by 11mm according to my quick calculations. You really need to start checking carefully that there is enough space left in the wheel arch for a tyre with a 5.5mm bigger overall radius.
You rightly suggest that the wheel rim will protrude more. Since there doesnt appear to be anyone who has tried this switch yet, it may well be a case of try it and see whether it works. Might it be possible to ask the tyre shop to fit just one tyre and check it on the front and rear of the lexus to check the fit ? They might do this if it means theres a possible sale of 4 tyres as part of the deal.

[Boldlygo]

The topic of tire sizes has been discussed many times on this board. But here is the bad news:
The speedometer reading with that size of tire will be 3.3% too slow. When the speedo reads 60 mpg, you will actually be going 62 mph. This is too much of a variance - and this is something most good tire shops should point out.
See: Tire size calculator

[Wass]

The topic of tire sizes has been discussed many times on this board. But here is the bad news:
The speedometer reading with that size of tire will be 3.3% too slow. When the speedo reads 60 mpg, you will actually be going 62 mph. This is too much of a variance - and this is something most good tire shops should point out.
See: Tire size calculator

This is absolutely correct, with the one reservation which is that my speedo reads 60mph when I am actually travelling at 56MPH and so such a modification would actually encourage a little more accuracy out of my speedometer. A variance which in the case of my own vehicle would be acceptable.

[CT200Kev]

Hi Guys

I am looking for winter tires and was wondering if anyone has tried 205/50/17 tires on the stock wheels?
The overall diameter is just slightly larger which should not be a problem at all, and the tire is slightly thinner which also shouldn't be a problem.
But do you think this would cause the wheel lip to stick out further than the tire?
Has anyone tried it?

Thanks,
Harsh

I thought long and hard about different wheels and tyre options but in the end went for the same size tyre that came with the car and put on existing wheels. Cant fault the Nokian tyres which are fantastic on all surfaces IMHO. I have done around 10K miles on them and have just rotated them and should easily get another winter and 10K miles from them

[Salty]

Hi all,

I am new to the forum and just bought an F-Sport in Edmonton. I got a great looking set of winter tires and alloys from The Tire Warehouse last week.

I went with 15" alloys and Michelin X-ice2 205/65R15 tires. The taller profile is much better in snow and this size reads 100.6 km/hr at 100 km/hr, so ever so slightly over-reporting actual speed. I can live with that!
The best part was the service manager put Schraeder programmable TPMS in each rim, scanned the codes on my factory TPMS and set the winter ones to the same codes.
Done deal at $75 per tire.
Now I can change tires over in my garage for zero cost.

The wheels look great on the car.
I will post a picture when I get home in a couple of weeks.

Salty.