Tire Recomendation Sizes, Stock 2.0 Fuchs, street driving Options

[hot_shoe914]

Okay, I am tired of trying to find what I am looking for in the old threads. I need new tires for Betsy and I run 205/50/15 on my other teeners. I am afraid this will have her sitting too low for the towbar brackets that I have drug a few times already with 195/60/15s. Front struts are shot and bottomed out so new struts will probably stop that but I want a wider tire without going too low profile. I have decided to just keep her as a street driver and no ax so what say the masses? Which tire size would you suggest? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

[steuspeed]

I just went through this with my car. Had my195/65/15 Pirelli P6000 High Performance Summer tires slashed at the beginning of the summer. I replaced them with 195/65/15 Bridgestone ER960AS Ultra High Performance All Season tires. These were the highest rated tire in this size on Tire Rack. I hated them right out of the gate. They felt like I was driving on marsh mellows. Looked like they should be on a Taurus.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?ti...S+Pole+Position

I decided against the P6000s since there were so many terrible reviews plus over double the price. However, going back I noticed that most of the Porsche guys liked the tire a lot. The big heavy AUDI's were having lots of problems with them. It is also a Porsche spec tire. Light weight at 18lbs. These tires were much stiffer with almost no lean on my car. Ride was jerky over any bumps, but it was all smiles with a go-kart feel around corners.

After tons of searching on the net looking for the ultimate combo of light weight tire and wheels I purchased a set of Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Specs in 195/55/15. This tire is about 1.5" shorter, but not the 2" shorter that a 205/50/15 provides. I bought 4 of the last availible at a lower load/weight rating of 18lbs. Now they only have the 19lb version for sale. They feel a bit softer than the P6000s, but there is more grip availible. This may improve as the tread wears down from full depth. (My Pirelli's were probably about half gone.) The ride is more comfortable. There is more acceleration, since it is a smaller diameter tire. The car sit about 5/8" lower than before. RPMs while freeway cruising are up 200-300 rpms. I'm rarely on the freeway, so this is working out fine for me. The car looks great sitting lower, but I am scraping on my driveway where I was not before.

The only way to get back to ~25" diameter tires is to go with a 16" wheel and 205/55/16 tires. There is a better selection of tires in this size, however the weight of the tire+wheels is going to excede the Fuch+18lb combo by a fair amount no matter what you choose. I was tempted by these 16" VTO wheels as a possible solution, but at a weight increase.

http://64.27.130.204/?portfolio=16x7-class...silver-4x130-35