Changing from 17's to 16's

[Uman]

Hi guys, I currently have a 2002 twin turbo Subaru Legacy Saloon with 17 inch rims & low profile tyres. Unfortunately due to the poor state of some roads here in Africa the damage is excessive & costly. Either the tyres get damaged or the rims fracture. Im thinking of moving to 16 inch rims with normal/semi-low profile tyres. What are the pros and cons of doing this? I've been told that this will affect handling particularly on corners, fuel efficiency, speed and many other things but I don't know if the effects will be positive or negative. Is it also possible to keep the overall size/height the same? Woul appreciate any help/advise...thanks

[Navi271]

I want to do this also. My car originally had 14inch rims, switched to 17inch rims for a couple years, and now want to go to 16inch rims for a more comfortable ride. It will feel a little more "splashy" on corners since there is more tire to give way to the weight of the car. It still will be able to handle turns tho, just loosing 1 inch... Usually fuel efficiency will increase because the 17inch rims are usually a little heavier than the 16's. Less spinning heavy weight means more response! And you should be able to get the same overall size, you just have to get the right tire size. If you keep the same overall size, there shouldn't be any increase or decrease in speed, and the speedometer should read correctly.

I don't know what brake setup you have, so you should probably double check to make sure the smaller 16inch rims can fit over your brakes.

You can use this tire size calculator to compare sizes of tires to what you have now to find out what size will keep the overall size!
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

Hope this helps!

[d1giPhux]

I think you have pretty much answered your own questions. If the roads suck there so much that its runing your rims / tires, I don't think you need to be worrying about 'performance' and such. There are very nice 16" wheels for these cars, including the stock GT wheels which can be had for nearly nothing. Plenty of GREAT tires in the 205/55/R15 size as well. You may also be able to run up to a 205/60/R16 tire max as well to fill up the wheel gap / height if you wanted.

You wont gain / lose any noticeable performance between these 2 wheel sizes. I run bout 16 and 17' wheels + respective tires and they both perform around the same. The 17's are a bit flashier looking because they fill the wheel gap a bit more, but otherwise, no difference.

[Uman]

Thanks a bunch guys...yeah, D1 you're right, the damage caused is certainly a no brainer...because if it isn't my rim that is getting fractured then one tyre or the other is always bulging/swelling and it gets pretty expensive because that needs replacement then...Navi, the fuel efficiency would certainly be a bonus, how exactly does the tyre size calculator work? I currently use size 215/45ZR17. Thanks for the link though... :)

[Navi271]

Yeah, but I think the increase in gas mileage would be pretty minimal, but who knows?! It all depends on what rims your riding on.

You put your current tire size in the stock tire column that are just above the big gray and black circles and then put the new tire size, that you will be using on your 16inch rims, in the new tire column next to the stock tire column. Then it will tell you below the circles what percent difference the wheel sizes are, and how much it will mess up your speedometer. I just put in some numbers, looks like you will need a 205/55/R16 tire. It's only a 1.1% difference in size from the 215/45ZR17, and 205/55/R16 is the standard 16inch tire size for stock subaru legacys!

You can play around with the tire size calculator if you want! I always wanted to see the most ridiculous tire size differences! It sounds like it sucks driving around where you live!

[ScaryFatKidGT]

If you get a tire with a stiff sidewall you wont notice any difference.