John F

I have a 98 A4 Quattro, and I was wondering if the stock 16" rims can handle a 225/50 16 tire without rubbing? Can anyone help me?

John

Easily! An added benefit is they give a measure of protection against scuffing the rims.

alex

I beleive the second number is a percentage of the overal tire area or something..anyway smaller numbers mean shorter sidewall(even though you are going to a 225 width). I had 225/50's on my last car(Subaru SVX) and the sidewalls are definately smaller than the 205/55-16" winter tires I just put on my car...

ChrisS

I checked it out on a tire size calulator.<ul><li><a href="http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html">Tire Size Calculator</a></li></ul>

ChrisS

Oops....that 5mm diameter.....

ChrisS

Holy crap my math sucks! those should be 0.25mm and 0.5mm. :-&gt;

Jon W

I just did the tire calculator and it said no dif. in sidewall height between the two sizes.

stanj

It must be the rubber, not the size alone, but since I switched from 205 Dunlop S8000E to 225 SO2 PolePositions, the gas consumption want way thru the roof. So did road noise.

Otherwise, no problem!

- Stan

GaryJ

I replaced my 8000E's with all season Dunlops and went up in size to compensate for the lower performance from the all seasons. They still look great: "beefier" from behind. While my gas mileage didn't drop through the floor, it did drop by around 1-1.5 miles per gallon. I have a 30Vqms. I wonder if the 2.8 is less affected by this change. Also, I didn't notice a difference in road noise. I'm not saying it didn't happen, just saying I didn't notice.

Mark P

Stock 16" tire (250/55 16):
16" diameter rim
205mm tire width
205mm*55% tire height = 112.75mm
Overall tire diameter = 16" + 2*112.75mm = 631.9mm = 24.878"

225/50 16:
16" diameter rim
225mm tire width
225mm*50% tire height = 112.50mm
Overall tire diameter = 16" + 2*112.50mm = 631.4mm = 24.858"

So the overall difference between tires is 1/50 of an inch. But since that's divided to each side of the tire, the tire comes 1/100 of an inch closer to your car (fenders). That ain't makin one bit o' difference

Mark P