205/50VR15 fit '99ES?
 

I would like to purchase tires to replace my stock Bridgestone Potenza's. I have the stock ES alloy wheel 15". I was wondering what the maximum width tire that can be installed on a Protege without causing any problems? (rubbing, clearance issues, etc).


I am looking at 205/50vr15 or 215/50vr15.

Is anybody using these sizes? Any problems.

Thanks in advance.

I have 205/50VR15's that fit with no problem. My car is also lowered 1.25" with Eibach pro kit springs and doesn't rub at all. The 215/50R15's will be slightly larger than your stock 195/55R15's which will change your gearing and speedometer slightly.

with stock tires 195/55-15 moving to:

205-50/15 means that there is a 1.6% error in you speedo reading (will be slightly high)

or

215-50/15 means that there is a 0.1% error in your speedo (basically no error)...

both sets would be well within the original tolerance of your speedometer and tire size variation from manufacturer to manufacturer....:p

ummm, question......how can a smaller tire have a higher error %?? the 215 is slightly larger than the 205.

But FWIW, i had 205/50/15s on my G1 with just the rears rubbing, but that was becasue of the wheel offset, your stock wheels will be fine. I now have 205/45/16 with less offset and no problems at all. I would suspect the 215s to be a bit wide for the stock wheels and may possibly rub the strut, since the stock offset keeps the wheel tucked more. That is if the stock wheels are 6" or 6.5" wide. If they are 7" wide, then i don't see a problem with either tire size. But my prefference would go to the 205's...

re: ummm, question......how can a smaller tire have a higher error %?? the 215 is slightly larger than the 205.

the error would be against the original tire size that is being replaced...

In this case a stock 199/55-15 (23.4in diameter) is looking to be replaced with either a 205/50-15 (23.1in diamter) or a 215/50-15 (23.5in diameter). Hence the smaller tire is further away percentage wise.

I used to use look up tables for this whole tire size mess... but found a nifty on-line version at:

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

I have taken it on faith that the numbers that they are using are correct... one of these days I will do a cross check on it.

Both of the replacement tires are within the usual guidle line (3% under sized, 2% over size) that tire dealers seem to use for tire size mismatch. Heck, tire diameters vary pretty wildly from the norm from manufacturer to manufacturer (ask anyone that has different front and rear tire brands on a 4WD with a locked center differential).

The other thing that one would really need to check is the width of the tire to make sure that it is not going to rub anything and cause problems. The on-line calc can also show the differences with that....

hope this helps, but it might have made things even more confusing...

Tire
 

Get the Kumho 712 tires. They're cheaper than the Bridgestones and much better performance. 205's should fit. I race on 225-45-15's on Miata rims. They have an extra 5mm of offset. Sometimes they rub in the back, so I switched to 205's.

-Jason