Does anyone run 225/50/17 on the front and 235/50/17 on the back? I have the OEM 17" rims on a 2kSE and have to put on new tires. Would there be a problem with this?

And, yes, I have read as much of the FAQ and tire threads as I could manage.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

First of all WHY would you want to do this?

Is it financial? Need to spread out the purchase of new tires into 2 at a time?

For looks? For performance? <---if either of these, it is inane to run wider tires on the BACK of a FWD car.

 

Take a look at what a picture of the 235/50 17 tires look like. The side wall is much larger than a 225/50/17.

 

Maximas already understeer heavily, which is a poor handling characteristic. Understeer is when the car starts plowing ahead when in a heavy corner. Oversteer is when the rear of the car snaps around. The best is when a car handles neutral, which means that the car just evenly slides outwards with both tires loosing traction at the same time.

If you install wider tires in the back than the front, you add even more traction to the back of the car and make it understeer even worse. It may look better, but the car will handle worse. It's a far better compromise to simply run the widest tires you can on both the front and rear. I think 245's are really the limit on the Maxima on the front so 245/245 front/rear would be the limit.

 

I went from 235/45/17 to 235/50/17 and it made a huge difference sizewise.
here are the pics as I changed out all four tires.
I do have the combination with smaller in the front bigger in the back for you to compare. It doesn't exactly match your setup but its darn close

http://maxima.homeip.net/max/Gr8Max2...%2017%20tires/

http://maxima.cardomain.com/member_p...=136527&page=2

 

What about when it's time for rotation? It might not look too good if the 235's get to be in the front, and the 225 in tha back.

 

Great pics, Gr8bone. HUGE help.

Thanks also to the others that responded.

 

NP
the main reason I went 235/50/17 was because tirerack was selling that size for $65 a tire! and the treadwear was rated at 550!
Its the same tire they put on the Lincoln LS The Firehawk LH. maybe they're still that cheap. its a gr8 tire