so i have a 02' se with 225/50/17 avid v4s (not good in hte snow) and aquired a set of 4th get 16's that need to be cleaned up and painted.

they are going to be snow duty...225/55/16 is a perfect match 215/55or60/16 is off a bit (tire rack is saying 215/60/16) and 205/60/16 is also dead nuts per the miata tire calculator.

so what size is hte best? prolly blizaks or winter force or dunlop snows...not alot of driving in winter...no real highway travel...just local...maybee70 miles a week.

thanks

 

It depends mostly on what kind of snow you have to deal with. If you deal with a lot of heavy snow or slush, definitely go with a skinnier tire than stock. tirerack probably says 215/60R16 to keep dry road traction and also give a tiny bit more ground clearance. This tire calculator will let you compare all of those sizes together.

 

I've got 215/55/16 Dunlop M3's on my 02. They're excellent in the snow.

 

id go with 205/60/16. Mainly because skinnier tires are better in snow, less tendancy to "float" in the snow/slush, they will be cheaper and are almost the exact overall diameter as your stock 225/50/17's. If you have dedicated snows handling on the dry shouldnt be a big problem main reason why, is because if you have snows no matter what size the car is going to handle like crap, snows arent designed for dry handling. They will be fine for normal driving but dont expect to pull 1.0G on the skidpad with them.

Good luck, i recommend blizzack LM22 or any blizzack tire.

 

The Dunlop's aren't bad in dry weather, I don't find them to be squishy at all. I'll go as far to say that they're probably as good as an A/S tire. Do your own research on winter tires, but the more you search you'll find out that most everyone who has these M3's including me like how they handle in both situations. 96blkonblk is right when he says that you can't expect to pull a G in the cornering department with any winter tire. BTW the 215/55/16 is the recommended replacement to stock size.

 

The M3s are biased toward the "sport" side of the snow tire range, that is, to do wet/dry pavement work 80-90% of the time and still be able to adequately handle in the snow for the other 10-20% of the time. However, if you live in an area where the snow duty will be higher than 50% of the time, the M3s will be a bad choice.

 

02themax "BTW the 215/55/16 is the recommended replacement to stock size."

That is correct for a 4th gen, but remember he is putting these on a 5th gen with 17's.

The size i recommended were within a percent of the original overall diameter of his stock 225/50/17. 215/55/16 is close but its perferable to get the closest you can to stock. Also the skinnier tire is better in the snow, so its not that bad of a draw back.

Yep, certain snow tires you can get which are more designed for sports cars for the snow. They are designed in which for w/e reason you can still drive at freeway speeds and still retain most of the handling but are still much better then an a/s in the snow. These tires also cost more, so its a trade off. Its like the triangle thing, you can choose 2 of these, handling, tire life and cost. If you have handling and tire life its gunna cost a lot, if you hve handling and cost, there not going to last long, cost and tire life, then you sacrifice handling.

Similar to the one, performance, price, reliability, you can have 2 lol.

 

Yep the triangle analogy makes sense. My opinion is biased because the M3's are the first winter tire I've owned. Other than the M3's which tires would provide a good trade off between snow and dry?