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225/45/17 to something with more rubber?

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positron

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Honda Accord 2.0
Hi,

My 05 Accord 2.0 needs two new front tyres. All fours are 225/45/17 at the moment, and lately there's a lot of tramlining and there's always been plenty of road noise above 60mph.

I am wondering if I can change the front two to something with a bit more rubber, say 225/50/17 or 215/55/17 (not sure if there's such a thing). I wouldn't mind sacrificing the low profile for a bit more comfort as I have a mini-me on the way..! :(

Thanks in advance for comments and suggestions..!!
 
Changing the aspect ratio of the tyre would change the overall circumference of the tyre and thus would make your speedo reading totally inaccurate (and the car not roadworthy).

If you went to aspect ratio of 50 then the tyre would have to be around a 205/50, if you went to AR of 55 then you would need a 185/55 tyre - obviously with the change in width of the tyre you could not use the same wheel so would need narrower wheels.
 
You could go down to 16 inch rims with a higher profile tyre? I am ***uming there will not be any brake caliper clearance issues on the 16s.
 
The speedo over reads by nearly 6% with 225/45/17's, which to me is unroadworthy :eek: . Putting 225/50/17's on brings the speedo to being just about spot on, I've proved this using a GPS :(
 
A speedo showing a speed greater than the true road speed does not make the car unroadworthy - however, if the speedo shows less than the true road speed then this is a problem.

If 50 aspect ratio makes the speedo reading accurately reflect the true road speed then it may be okay - it is your choice - however, if the car is in an insurance claim and is found to have incorrect specification tyres relating to the circumference then a loss adjuster would have a good excuse not to pay up fully.
 
my speedo showed 3mph more than satnav speed on standard 185/70/14, im now on 215/45/17, and my speedo is exact to the satnav now.

Use this to get the idea also http://www.etyres.co.uk/tyre-size-calculator.htm
 
Big Pete said:
A speedo showing a speed greater than the true road speed does not make the car unroadworthy - however, if the speedo shows less than the true road speed then this is a problem.

If 50 aspect ratio makes the speedo reading accurately reflect the true road speed then it may be okay - it is your choice - however, if the car is in an insurance claim and is found to have incorrect specification tyres relating to the circumference then a loss adjuster would have a good excuse not to pay up fully.
Click to expand...

Pete, I was just trying to make the point that the speedo is pretty well in accurate as it is, and that by changing to 50 aspect ratio actually improves this, and I take your point about the insurance :(
 
To the OP, you need to think it through. The guys are right, there is no way to add more tyre sidewall to the existing rims without affecting the rolling radius.

You need to consider going down a size in rim.
 
Thanks a million for all the comments - I am a bit silly, I like the look of 17 on the Accord and thinks 16 is too small, but may be higher profile will fill up the tyre-well again... Is 225/50/17 really a bad idea? Like above, I do think speedo is now showing slightly more than what GPS works out. Newer Accords seems to be coming with 225/50/17 factory fitted - I wonder if they have tuned the speedo to match that, and how hard is it / or is it even possible to tune / adjust speed dial to show the exact speed with new profile tyres?
 
One more thing - I have these gun metal 17" 5 spoke (Penta?) alloys - how wide are they? I am leaning towards 245/50/17, but also thinking of playing safe with 215 or 205 as suggested above.

That eiretyre calculator linked above is brilliant - total difference between 225/45 and 225/50 is above 3, while they are only recommending +/- 2.5. 205/50 on the other hand is very similar to 225/45 in over all diameter, but like already mentioned, will it fit this particular wheel...?
 
245/50 will add a lot of sidewall compared to the stock 225/45 and I'm sure will throw your speedo out loads.. It'll also look silly in my opinion and the extra 20mm width might even add to the tramlining effect.
 
F5HAD, I was not considering 245/50 - I was thinking of 225/50. Or 215/50. Or 205/50, but this may be too narrow for the wheel...?

According to the eTyres calculator linked above, the difference in diameter between 225/45/17 to 215/50/17 is +2.05%, which is within their recommended limit of +/- 2.5%.

Thanks again!!

PS: F6HAD, you are here too - brilliant..!!
 
OK well I was just going off your post as you mention 245/50/17..

Anyway, yes 215/50/17 will be fine, but it won't give you the extra sidewall you're looking for because you'll get 50% of 215mm instead of 45% of 225mm

The point I was making in my earlier post is that if you stick to keep your rolling radius correct on the same rim, there is no way to achieve a bigger sidewall...without throwing the RR out.
 
all this worry about different size tyres because of tramlining and road noise what make of tyres are on the car now? a change of make will make a huge difference to tram lining, noise and comfort
 
mines on Pirelli's some times I feel a bit of tramlining but I don't think it any worse than any other car and they're dead quiet. As for comfort they seem fine to me but coming from a car with soft suspension its a bit hard to say. Handling wise well I don't push my car and its stayed on the black stuff so far
 
Just been out on a run today and compared my speedo to GPS and overall from 30-80 mph speedo was reading 4-5 mph fast. Running 225/45/17's, Cooper Zeon's(were on the car when bought) which are down to about 3mm and does suffer with tramlining quite a bit. Obviously as tyres wear down RR is reduced,so going to swap with rear tyres (approx 8mm) to check difference in speedo reading.
Depending on results not sure which brand to replace with (funds slightly limited,but own a garage so can get at cost),want to improve feel and reduce tramlining.
Also run a 6th Gen with 195/60/15 Kumho's and has so much more feel and handling compared to 7th gen.
 
Massive apologies for coming back this late to this thread - I don't drive much, I am yet to change those tyres. Finally found some time to checkout existing tyres - I have four 225/45/R17 Bridgestone Potenza's (re050a, tubeless 91y). The front's are well worn - probably below 1.6mm at this stage - and the rear has at least 5-6mm left. I find the over all ride quality a bit on the rigid side, and there's plenty or road noise on fast motorways and tramlining on bad road surfaces. Is this normal for Potenzas?

In the boot, the spare tyre is a 195/65/R15 Michelin Energy. Unless 15" spare tyres are standard, I would speculate that the car probably came with 15" wheels, and the previous owner upgraded it to 17"? (The change in rolling diameter from 195/65/R15 to 225/45/R17 is 0% - so may be it's the done thing? However, the speedo is always higher than GPS by 3 - 5%)

So if I go 225/50/17, rolling diameter changes by 3.63%, which hopefully would make the the speedo match the GPS...!

Thanks again..!!
 
To be honest fitting 225/50/17 will not make a noticable difference and will just cost you more for tyres.

Going the other way is a popular mod on the Vectra C SRI, I went from 215/50/17 to 225/45/17 on my old Vectra and the to be honest i couldnt notice any difference appart from the 45 profile tyres were cheaper due to being more popular.

As for the spare, My Accord has standard 17's and my spare is a 15". Its just the way it is. Cheaper for Honda to stick a steel 15" wheel in the boot than a 17" alloy.
Im pretty sure the smallest wheel available on the 7th gen was 16" anyway. (could be wrong though)
Hope this helps. :D
 
Interesting day - after posting here, I just mentioned this thought to a mate, long story short, the car now has two used 225/45/17 Continental SportContact 2s in place for very little money. I did this as a temporary solution to changing all four corners to 225/50 (rather expensive), especially when the rear two are in top condition, and the Contis were very cheap too - They only have about 5mm tread on them, but otherwise they look perfectly fine.

The Potenza's that I took out had worn out in the middle of the tire surface - the sides were had plenty of tread left. It looked as if I had over inflated the tires - which I might have. Expensive lesson learned. Anyway, there's some difference in ride quality with the used Contis. Steering feels firmer - it used to very twitchy with Potenzas, and I haven't had any tramlining driving in the town and backroads today. I hope they last me well while I save up for four 225/50/17s.
 
I have 16" on mine, i really like the look of the pentas but the large number of tramlining/poor handling threads i read is putting me off!
is this a common thing when ppl put larger wheels on cars? loads of ppl put oversize alloys on their cars - do they all suffer a worse car for the looks? and the pnetas are standard fitment anyway so why the poor effect? it's as if they didn't test the bloody things?!
 
I still don't understand how a 17" Penta is going to handle any different to any other 17" alloy?

It is a myth.
 
i'm inclined to agree but i have read quite a few threads on various forums about these wheels - but i still want them!
apart from the £125 a corner cost of tyres :-(
 
Just changed my front tyres,had Cooper Zeon 225/45/17's on down to about 3mm but suffered badly from tramlining and steering following lines and ruts etc. After a few weeks of trying to decide which make+tread pattern to go for I plummed for Pirelli P6000's (I own a garage so can get at trade). What a difference,so much smoother,quieter and steering so much more enjoyable,even the wife noticed straight away.
 
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