We'll never know unless you try. Slap that puppy under your car and if we don't hear from you at the end of winter then we know it wasn't good for another season.
I cannot imagine living in a place where it's illegal to run an alternate tire size. My minivan came stock with 215/65R16 (about 27"), but with that size installed it looks like a whale on rollerskates. I went up to 235/65R16 (about 28" diameter), which makes it look so much better.
At least here in Germany you can run different sizes as long as the running surface doesn't stick out past the fenders and as long as the tire size doesn't affect the speedometer. You just have to go to your local TÜV to have it certified and added to the car's papers. The bureaucracy sucks but it's ultimately still a good thing that you can't just slap any tire on any car.
Yeah that's still insane. A different tire size even if it's not meant for your car is not going to make the car drive worse unless it is much much smaller or much much larger
The rules are there so that nobody kicks up a rock into your windshield, your tire doesn't blow because it's rubbing somewhere and so you know the speed you're going. It's not much about handling and just about road safety.
I did that too once in the middle of winter with a car I had just bought. I just gave the tires a glance and they looked good so I didn't think much of it. I found out they were from 1995 when I did a more thorough check later... But I really couldn't tell aside from the fact that they were pretty noisy on the road.
This tire is from a different car, it's the spare in my boot and is from 1989. The car itself is from 1990. I would never use it, it's just there because it's funny.
16 replies
We'll never know unless you try. Slap that puppy under your car and if we don't hear from you at the end of winter then we know it wasn't good for another season.
I like this approach, very scientific.
One can always make a hypothesis, but testing it with experiments is what really matters.
It either goes unused or gets you all the way to the scene of the accident lol
10 seconds on the road, it's gonna Tear down that [side] wall
Yeah youre fine...
I once drove with 30 year old original tyres, because they dont make that size anymore.
Than i drove another size (illegaly)
I cannot imagine living in a place where it's illegal to run an alternate tire size. My minivan came stock with 215/65R16 (about 27"), but with that size installed it looks like a whale on rollerskates. I went up to 235/65R16 (about 28" diameter), which makes it look so much better.
At least here in Germany you can run different sizes as long as the running surface doesn't stick out past the fenders and as long as the tire size doesn't affect the speedometer. You just have to go to your local TÜV to have it certified and added to the car's papers. The bureaucracy sucks but it's ultimately still a good thing that you can't just slap any tire on any car.
Yeah that's still insane. A different tire size even if it's not meant for your car is not going to make the car drive worse unless it is much much smaller or much much larger
The rules are there so that nobody kicks up a rock into your windshield, your tire doesn't blow because it's rubbing somewhere and so you know the speed you're going. It's not much about handling and just about road safety.
I did that too once in the middle of winter with a car I had just bought. I just gave the tires a glance and they looked good so I didn't think much of it. I found out they were from 1995 when I did a more thorough check later... But I really couldn't tell aside from the fact that they were pretty noisy on the road.
It says W. Germany, I guess it took a while to upgrade the tooling then.
This tire is from a different car, it's the spare in my boot and is from 1989. The car itself is from 1990. I would never use it, it's just there because it's funny.
Yeah, its good when nothing happens.
I took mine one lap around the nurburgring.
But the car didnt drive over 80km/h... Sometimes you just have to gamble
I have an original spare tire in my 1993 Subaru Loyale, and probably also in my 1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale, it'll prolly be fine.
Six years is the service life of tires in the US, even if it never hits the road.