lefty
Well-Known Member
When I was enigneering my car I found it extremely difficult to find a 205 tyre with a higher load rating than 84. Here is an extract during one of my emails with the engineer. In the end I ditched the 205's with 84 rating and bought the Kumho Ecsta 215 with 87 rating... a better choice in the long run because finding a higher load rating in a 215 was much much easier at the time and I had a lot more choices of tyres available.
As the existing tyre load rating on my vehicle is 84 (500kg) and with a TARE weight of 1240kg, it appears that in comparison to the GSR Lancer’s 1190kg with tyre rating of 85 (515kg), mine seems lower. It will need to be an engineer’s call on whether the load rating of the tyre used on my vehicle will need to be 84 minimum or higher. I have shopped around for replacement tyres in the 205/40/17 range with >84 load rating and nearly all shops told me that finding something >84 is ‘unavailable’, or ‘not going to happen’. I literally called a dozen (12) stores today being Bridgestone, Tyrepower, Argy Tyres, O’Neills, Kmart Auto, Jax, Beaurepairs, Tyres Plus, Tyres & More, Ross Tyres, and Goodyear and all only offered a 205/40/17 tyre in an 84 rating. If I stepped up to a 215/40/17 tyre, then I will have several options of tyres with a load rating of 87 or above.
Only one store in 12, Bob Jane T-Marts, had the one and only tyre brand called Maxxis which came in a 205/40/17 with 86W load rating. I am concerned that if I purchase these tyres, and the profile and load rating of these tyres are written on the engineer certificate, that it may be extremely difficult to source replacement tyres with the same load rating in future.
Hope that helps...
Hrm thanks Rob. Yea looks like I got three options....
A. Stick with 205/40/17 and ignore the load rating :S
C. Have to bend these metal tabs shown in your thread to fit 215/40/17 which will have 87 or higher load rating.
Just another quick question, wouldn't those 215s hit the actually body wheel arch of the car if say you have a full load of people/boot and say hit a bump/ditch? My 205s are already fairly close to the body arch, can just fit my finger between the wheel/body arch as it is, I assume going with 10mm wider tyres makes the tyre parallel with the body frame/wheel arch?
EDIT: Don't try 205/45/17, the tyres rub when u hit dips in the road etc, just stick with 205/40/17, had to go back to the tyre shop... argh
