Help me with tire size/rims [Merged]

[fq007]

One more question: Well for my vehicle tirerack.com suggests 215/40-18 tires with 18" rims, but I was looking on ebay and there are these rims that I like but the seller is providing 225/40-18 tires. So I am wondering if I get that would those fit properly on the car? If anyone has an idea let me know please :) thanks!

Okay so my younger brother's birthday is coming up and apparently he wants rims for his civic...so I decided maybe I'll get him some...but what is the biggest size rim I can get that will go with his car which is 2003 Civic LX Coupe? and then what tire size would I need for those rims? Obviously I don't want the tire coming into contact with the car. The car as of now is completely stock. If anyone want to tell me what's the best place to look for rims at an affordable price in Scarborough/Durham area or even Toronto that'll be great. Thanks alot! o and if someone knows any website where I can get this information that'll be helpful too. I wish I knew more about cars :(. anyways thanks!

[hytong]

looks like 17" rim will be max
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/results.jsp?autoMake=Honda&autoModel=Civic+LX+Coupe&autoYear=2003&autoModClar=
Pick one with low moment of inertia and mass to minimize unsprung weight
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/SelectTireSize.jsp?autoMake=Honda&autoModel=Civic+LX+Coupe&autoYear=2003&autoModClar=
to fit the rim diameter and width

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=7

[VorteC]

If you are looking local, check out all the local car club websites.
Check out torontocivics.. mazda3club.. TAC and look for rims that would suit the civic.

I think 17's would go nicely with a civic, but aftermarket rims can look gross if the car isn't dropped. Better invest in some Tein c/o's first.. or springs if you're low on budget.

Tires depend on the rim size you get.. say if you get 17 x 7.5 rims, 225/50/17tires would prob be good.

[ES_Revenge]

Rimz! Just in time for winter! Also just for winter, get the largest ones you can possibly get! Get some mad 22s yo, and then put on some summer tirez in a completely wrong size. It'll stick to the icy roads like Teflon on motor oil! Perhaps he won't stay on the road long but he'll sure look good in an otherwise stock Civic.





:lol:

Okay, just kidding. But if I wasn't going to do it I'm sure someone else was going to come along and flame you for wanting to buy "the biggest rims that can fit" on a stock Honda Civic, in the middle of December...

I hoping this is either a summer-only vehicle, or that the wheels will be bought now and only used in the summer or something along those lines.

Now if you have the money to waste you could get aftermarket wheels for winter use, but no one in their right mind would get them in the largest size possible, probably 17" tops for winter on a car like that. But on a Civic, particularly the ~100hp models a smaller wheel would be desireable for winter (what ever is stock really).

Also I would not even think about putting all-season tyres on any wheels for any car, but if you really want to do that, it's your call.

Anyway going back to my assumption that these aren't going to be used for winter, as for what is the largest size possible the sky is pretty much the limit here. Doing certain mods to the vehicle body and chassis you can probably get 22" wheels on there if you really wanted. Heck being a Civic I wouldn't be surprised if someone, somewhere, in some twisted just-because-I-could fashion has put 24" wheels on a Civic, lol.

All that said, a more realistic but still fashionable size would probably be an 18" wheel I'd have to say (again for summer use) and what ever tyre size plus-sizes properly to that big a wheel. But as said above, a large wheel like that might look a little off if the car isn't lowered. So I would say 17" tops without lowering, but I'm not really all that sure about the specifics of a 2003 Civic to tell the truth.

Tyres don't come in contact with the car vertically if you plus size properly because the overall tyre/wheel is still the exact same diameter--all you're doing is increasing the wheel size and decreasing the sidewall height. Once you get into crazy sizes this changes because the tyre can only get so thin, but let's stay on the more realistic size of this...

Let's go with a quick example... Tyres have a size format which usually reads aaa/bb-Rcc. aaa is the width of the tyre in mm; bb is the aspect ratio or percentage of width that is the sidewall; R means it's a radial tyre (most are these days); cc is the wheel size the tyre goes with.

So a tyre that's say 195/60-R15 (incidenally an available stock size on this Civic) means that it's 195mm wide, and the sidewall height is 60% of 195mm, and it's radial, and it mounts on a 15" wheel.

A plus two size for this would be 205/45-R17 (according to TireRack which I'm sure is correct). Do you see what happened there? The width of the tyre increased but the sidwall height as a percentage of the tyre width went down. In the 15" size we had a 117mm sidewall; in the 17" size we have a 92.25mm sidewall. The wheel however got 2" or 50.8mm larger in diameter which adds 25.4mm in radius. Adding 25.4 and 92.25 guess what we get? That's right, approximately 117mm. So as you should see the overall tyre and wheel together are still the same size vertically, only it's gotten slightly wider.

So even when you plus-size properly, the tyre still gets wider which is where you can run into problems horizontally where the tyre rubs the wheel wells or the suspension components. For this reason you have to start doing some tricks with the tyre sizing in terms of width to get a tyre that fits well.

If you keep it at the 17" size you probably will have no problems at all, but at the same time 17" is probably not anywhere near "the biggest rim size you can get". TireRack themselves even shows sizes all ready to go up to 19"--they recommend a 215/35-19 tyre at that size. Wheels going up a size usually aren't all that much more expensive I find, but tyres do get a bit more expensive when you go to a lower profile tyre as the tyre has to be better made and have a stronger sidewall. So that ends up in a 4x addition over the whole vehicle.

Since it already sounds like you don't really have that great a grasp on this, I would read some of the links above from other posters and also perhaps consider just going to a tyre/wheel shop and telling them the type of car you have and what packages/options are available. TireRack is great, especially for saving money but I would recommend you do a bit more research into tyre sizing and wheels for your specific application, before you make an order off there.

If not, a local shop is probably a better idea albeit probably a little more expensive.

[Amuthini]

16 - 205/50/16
17 - 205/45/17
18 - 215/40/18
anything more is just foolish for a Civic.

[kleptodathief]

has anyone mention OFFSET of the rims??? dpending how low or stock that civic's suspension is?

as for place to get rims, i'd check craigslist toronto site, lots of cheap rims + tire combo on that site...if u want new and cheap i'd try ebay...locally u can call up tires23.com for price quote

ups shipping will RAPE u once the rims get to ur door tho..but tell the guy to declare the rims at a lower value if ur getting it from the usa

GL

[hytong]

http://www.tirefactory.com/img/offset.gif
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/techpage.jsp?techid=101

its wheel positioning for a given rim width mostly, offset for alloy rim is stamped along with its width and diameter, offset affect clearance and scrub radius once you add contact path to the equation

http://www.familycar.com/Alignment.htm

[fq007]

thanks to all you guys :D especially ES_Revenge

ya the rims are for summer...just going to buy it in a month because its my bro's birthday...if I don't find anything good then I guess I'll tell him to wait a bit :P...but ye thanks everyone :D

[gamer123]

like VorteC mentioned, you'll need to drop it when getting bigger rims/tires, else car will look weird like this:

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g92/ozone-03/PICT0108.jpg

[fq007]

One more question guys: Well for my vehicle tirerack.com suggests 215/40-18 tires with 18" rims, but I was looking on ebay and there are these rims that I like but the seller is providing 225/40-18 tires. So I am wondering if I get that would those fit properly on the car? If anyone has an idea let me know please thanks!

[kleptodathief]

fq: it dpends on the offset of ur rims and how HI OR LOW the car is dropped(ie suspsension setup) ... ask around on the civic forums where RICERS have slammed cars with beefy tires

[Rekognize]

Well for my vehicle tirerack.com suggests

You can also try Discounttiredirect.com I bought a set of Drag 17" rims with Nitto tires combo for around $450 when they had the $200 off sale last summer. Shipped the stuff to Mike in Buffalo and picked it up from there. NEVER use UPS for shipping anything across the border.

IMO, don't go over 17" for a civic.. 15s on nice tires look good as well..

http://www.hiphopcars.com/cars/40_inch_rims.jpg