hi, anyone recently changed 185/55R15 tyres? how much? doing survey might need to change in next few months. non performance car, looking for good FC out of the tyres (XM2?) and not high mileage (15-20k/yr) so don't need long lasting or hard tyres (treadwear around 200?).

also, anyone using 185/55R15 but downgrade rim+tyre to 185/60R14? any comments or feedbacks? thought of doing this as 55 series seems a bit too harsh on our famous bumpy roads.

This post has been edited by poolcarpet: Jul 20 2011, 09:31 AM

why upgrade to 185/60R15? this will be more than 3% difference from the original 185/55R15.... i noticed a lot of ppl and tyre shops will recommend to upgrade or change the size of the standard spec. has anyone stopped to think why change it?? just curious...

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Added on July 21, 2011, 9:04 amthis is a good website for reference:
http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

i checked savvy standard spec, it's using 165/60R14 tyres

if you're using 185/55R15 now, it's already way more than 3% larger. no offense to tyre shop ppl here, but most of them do not educate themselves and just spew out rubbish to unsuspecting owners. if you do a bit of research, understand more about tyre profile, and OD (overall diameter), you can easily see that the tyre shop fella is just bluffing you when he says 185/55 is smaller. i would not go back to that same shop if i were you. same as a shop i recently went, i'm using 185/55R15 but he said can upgrade to 195/60R15. OD would have been way too large with 60 series. if upgrading to 195, then it should be 195/50R15, not 60 series. i suspect that some of them may be driven by profit, i.e. a certain brand/type of tyres may give them more profit so they recommend that.

rule of thumb is keep the difference less than 3%. if you're using 15" rims, then the best size should be 185/50R15 if there is such a size. 175/50R15 would have been ok, since it's only 0.4% difference.

so 165/60R14 almost equal to 175/50R15 but 185/55R15 is way too large (185/55R15 is roughly the same as 175/70R13, the standard size on older iswaras, wiras)

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Added on July 21, 2011, 9:06 amwho knows the best price for michelin xm2 185/55R15 & where? thanks!

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Added on July 21, 2011, 9:17 amalso, anyone got comments on conti premium contact 2? currently i'm on conti comfort 1, thinking of either cpc2 or xm2

This post has been edited by poolcarpet: Jul 21 2011, 09:17 AM

whoa, relax... i didn't mean any offense. i'm just curious why anyone would recommend to change from 185/55R15 to 185/60R15. it's NOT a good recommendation. the overall diameter of the rim+tyre would be way too big. there is no need to use sarcasm and ask me to be a tyre consultant. i'm just wondering why is it that many people will just suggest to arbitrarily change tyre sizes? it happened to my friends too (recommended by tyre shop). i'm all ok for changing rims+tyre profile so that the OD remains within 3%, but in example from 185/55R15 to 185/60R15 it exceeds 3%.

i'm not saying i'm great, and i'm no tyre expert but very simple logic tells you, if car company uses 185/55R15 as their standard spec, there is a reason, right? why don't they use 185/60R15 since it will be more comfy (the car is nowhere near a high performance car, so stability is not a good reason). i only know tyre profile, overall diameter, and how to read the tyres xxx/xxRxx and manufacture code. i do not think that qualifies me to be a tyre expert.

so i'm just wondering, why is it that a lot of ppl recommend to change tyre sizes beyond the 3% guideline. that's all. no offense intended and hope you do not take any. peace man. thanks.


This post has been edited by poolcarpet: Jul 21 2011, 09:58 AM

XM2 185/55R15 RM250 each, recently quoted to me. Expensive lah I think.
PS3 if 185/55R15 i was quoted RM260 each. Don't know about 195/50R15.

If anyone know better deals please do share

This post has been edited by poolcarpet: Jul 22 2011, 06:04 AM

can PM me which shop is this? i would like to drop by if they have xm2 around RM220!! Thanks!!

where?

you should ask your friend why recommend to 15". look nicer? more stable?

iswara standard is 175/70R13
if you want to upgrade +1, it will be 185/60R14
if you want to go for upgrade +2, it will be 195/50R15

for 15" rims you'll need spacers.

ask yourself what is the budget for your 4 tyres. 195/50R15 will cost more than the 185/60 which in turns cost more than the 175/70.

i don't know about the rest, but i personally can't tell the difference whether i'm using a 175 or 185 or 195 or 13" or 14" or 15" (i have cars which uses all these different sizes...). the only difference i can really feel is the FC. maybe i drive like old uncle (no disrespect to any uncles here). instead of changing to 15", it might be worthwhile thinking of getting really good 13" tyres.

so most importantly, what is the reason for thinking of changing to 15"? looks? stability? high speed? cornering? burn hole in wallet? after you figure out the reason, then you can go shopping!

This post has been edited by poolcarpet: Jul 27 2011, 04:08 PM

ah... then perhaps the first thing you can do is change the absorbers and maybe spring. mine is a 12 yr old iswara, changed to apm performax absorbers, standard spring. can feel much stiffer but still it's just an iswara, you can't corner at high speeds (although i would say anything below 80km/h is still ok....).

if you want to change to 15" because want to fit in the perdana brakes, then makes sense.... good luck in your choice!

probably reasonable i guess, i was quoted RM180 per piece for XM2 175/70R13 (not R14) recently but didn't take up the offer as I ended up buying used 14" rim + tyre for less than that obviously the tyres are not michelins....