Tire question - Originally posted by kingjman

[philipa_240sx]

Quote »... but the ruff ride of the 17"s is getting more irritating..and the cheap tires don't help(dunlop st20) ...lot of bad ratings online....I'm already considering 16" rims and michelin tires.....(anybody that's done a good comparison of the 16 vs 17 ride Quality, please pm me on how drastic your results were)[/quote]Hello kingjman,

Tire design/type has more impact on ride quality than the 1" difference in rim size you are considering. I would strongly suggest swapping to a touring type tire vs. swapping to smaller rim size. Our site sponsor, http://www.tirerack.com is a great resource for tire information and reviews.

For example: My wife has a Mazda Protege. We just changed the tires and went from a very stiff Toyo FZ4 (High Performance All Season) to the new Kumho Solus KH16 (Grand Touring All Season) in the same 205/45R16 size. The ride quality improved immensely despite the fact these are low profile 45 series tires.

You may want to look at the following 'touring type' tires:

- Kumho Solus KH16 (Grand Touring All-Season)- Yokohama AVID TOURING-S (Standard Touring All-Season)- Yokohama AVID TRZ (Standard Touring All-Season)- Michelin Energy LX4 (All-Season)- Michelin HydroEdge (All-Season)

More information can be found on http://www.tirerack.com

Here is a review on tires (namely the Yokohama AVID TRZ) by our members:

zer...rogue