Hi,
To John Worthy (and Trevor et al)...
I wrote that stuff about the tires based on my experience with buying
tires for my car and a chart (actually an Excel spreadsheet called
tires.xls) that floated around on the 'net back in '92 or so.
As others have stated, the 215/70-15 is slightly taller than the stock
185/80-15 tires that the car came with. The 215/65-15 is about .5 inches
shorter total height than the original, and the 215/60-15 is roughly 1.5
inches shorter. So, that translates to around 6% smaller everything which
means your speedo would be off by at least 6%. Note: the tire will get
shorter still over time when you consider wear, I would not be at all
surprised if the 215/60-15's would be off by around 10% when they wear.
All that having been said, I'll offer the following: for some reason,
folks consider this tire thing with the fervor that other folks may
afford to religion or other issue that demands strong feelings. I don't
mean to offend anyone - I'm just offering my experience.
FWIW, I might need new tires this year, I'll probably go to 215/65's
because there are more of those available than the 215/70's.
I still stand by my other comments about the shorter tires (like the
205/60-15's - they are okay for autocross, but they are something like
15% shorter than the stock tires - that's like dropping your differential
ratio to 4.255 which will help you accelerate more quickly but you'll pay
with diminished top-end speed. Put another way - you're speedo will say
"65", your ticket will say "55.25". It'll take you a lot longer to go places.
;-)
C ya,
rml
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