The effects of a thinner sidewall tire?

[05_se_lunarmist]

I found the tires I want to get but cant decide weather to go with a 45 or 50 sidewall. My OEM is 215/55R17 and I know I want to go with a 225/50R17 or a 225/45R17. The tires I want are much cheaper in the 45's and are more readilly available. Would there be much of a difference between the two? Would the 45's look too dinky and stupid on my car? I will have just put on the TRD springs and I have the V6 so I should get a decent drop.

2005 Camry SE V6...

[lammydi]

Lunarmist,
I think you are better of with 235-45-17 because it will give you a overall diameter of 25.33 inches. And the OEM tire with 215-55-17 is 26.31 overall.
That is a -3.7% less than the OEM overall diameter.
The sidewall is .5 of an inch shorter (from 4.66 inches down to 4.16 inches)
It will look better if you lower it.

[greylock]

Recommended size is 225/50 with 7" width rims. With the 45's you will need a minimum 7.5" rim due to less sidewall flexibility. 235's will not fit unless you get wider aftermarket rims with the appropriate offset to clear your struts. 225's will barely clear the struts on the inside with the stock rims.

Expect a harsher ride also with less sidewall to soak up the bumps. I'm running 225/50x17 on aftermarket rims with a +38 offset and had to do some trimming on my fenderwell due to some minor rubbing.

[05_se_lunarmist]

Originally Posted by greylock

Recommended size is 225/50 with 7" width rims. With the 45's you will need a minimum 7.5" rim due to less sidewall flexibility. 235's will not fit unless you get wider aftermarket rims with the appropriate offset to clear your struts. 225's will barely clear the struts on the inside with the stock rims.

Expect a harsher ride also with less sidewall to soak up the bumps. I'm running 225/50x17 on aftermarket rims with a +38 offset and had to do some trimming on my fenderwell due to some minor rubbing.

Thanks Greylock... I know we have the exact same car and I wanted to get your take on how the car looked with 50's after the TRD springs were installed.

So you don't have your 5 spoke gunshot rims on the car anymore?

[w203]

Thinner sidewalls on a tire equates to less sidewall flex. If you know what that means you would know what it does to the handling.

[greylock]

Originally Posted by 05_se_lunarmist

Thanks Greylock... I know we have the exact same car and I wanted to get your take on how the car looked with 50's after the TRD springs were installed.

So you don't have your 5 spoke gunshot rims on the car anymore?

Nope, sold them already. They were nice but not what I liked. I prefer machined aluminum or hyper black. My current set has machined aluminum face and lip (~2") with silver paint trim on the inside of the spokes. I'm also running the TRD springs. I'll have to post some pics cause the car now sits noticeably lower. That extra 1/4" drop from the tire size and with the oem body kit, I now have to angle in and out of my driveway to prevent scraping.

[lammydi]

Originally Posted by greylock

Nope, sold them already. They were nice but not what I liked. I prefer machined aluminum or hyper black. My current set has machined aluminum face and lip (~2") with silver paint trim on the inside of the spokes. I'm also running the TRD springs. I'll have to post some pics cause the car now sits noticeably lower. That extra 1/4" drop from the tire size and with the oem body kit, I now have to angle in and out of my driveway to prevent scraping.

Greylock,
Can you send pictures of your car please? I am also in San Diego. Nice to see another TN member from San Diego.

[Yazovets]

Well with a 45-sidewall tire, curb rash will be easier to do...and the ride will be even stiffer. I'd go with a 5-sidewall tire.

BTW, nice folding data center, greylock! Always good to see somebody putting all these idle machines to good use!

I am a serious folder myself for my university (York). I have 6 machines folding in total.

My main machine is a Pentium D Extreme Edition OCed to 4GHz. That runs 4 instances. Then I have an Athlon64 X2 3800 machine which runs 2 instances. Then there's my laptop - a Pentium M @ 2GHZ for 1 instance. Then there's an additional Athlon64 3800 for 1 instance. I have an identical Athlon64 3500 machine at the cottage, also doing 1 instance. And finally I have an older Prescott P4 3GHZ OCed to 3.2GHZ doing 1 instance.

The average time for a result is 6 hours, and as a total account, I spit out results every 2-3 hours.

[woodman411]

Have you seen the previous gen TRD Solara? http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/fe...ara/index.html

I know it's not the same car, but it had a similar drop with TRD springs and 17x7 rims, like we do, and they chose 225/45/17's. I have the same size on a BMW and they are really not that thin - almost 4 inches sidewall height.

Disclaimer: I still have the original 215/55/17's, but when the time comes to change them, I will go with 225/45/17's with TRD springs.

* WW