which TIre?

[Pastor Larry Roques]

I am buying tires for my 96 bird for the first time. The tires that are on the car are the same ones that were there when I bought it a year ago. It is a fine mix of sumitomo,yohahama, pirelli, and suho....one of each (eeeeeuwwwww!) Anyway, the tires they have on there are the 235-55-16s on the stock bird rim. I see by looking into it that the original stock tire is a 215-60-16. Is there much difference in the two tires appearance and performance wise...and which do you think I should go with [img]graemlins/burnout.gif[/img]

[Dan Vincent]

If you have the Y87 package, your car came stock with the fatter/lower profile 235/55/R16. It's a decent size for a sixteen inch rim and I'd suggest sticking with that size and ordering four new Kumhos off of Tirerack.

The main difference between the two is that the 235/55/R16 are fatter on the tread and narrower on the sidewall, giving better tracking and performance in general (and lower profile tires tend to look better on our cars).

[Everglades W68]

Definitely get the 235/55/16's. Much better than the 215's all around plus they look better.

I started out with 235/55/16's and then chose 255/50/16's when those wore out. The only downside for me to the 255's is they decreased my gas mileage a little.

[Pastor Larry Roques]

I've seen the tirerack headers here on the site. I am really not equipped to do mounting or balancing myself...where do you guys have that done locally when you buy tires off the web?

[chas]

i went with dunlop sp5000 245/whatever/16. order from tirerack (the ground shipping was practically overnight from new jersey).

drove them up to my local goodyear who mounted and balanced them (yes, 4 tires will fit in the firebird).

[Dan Vincent]

I had it done at Town Fair Tire in Springfield - any tire shop will work well.

[Turbo V6 Camaro]

i went to 255/50ZR16 and the car handle much better and wet roads was no problem at all

['98 BlackBird]

When I got my new tires, I ordered from dicount tire direct I found they were cheaper and free shipping! Check them out.

[CAMAROWIDBASS]

You can go with 245-50-16 i have found this to be the best size tire in my opinion. Its not to wide yet not to narrow.

You can take it to any tire shop to have them mounted and balanced.

[Pastor Larry Roques]

I checked my car again, and the size that they have on the car are 245s. I looked at the Tirerack page on deciphering tire sizes and let me see if I get this straight....the 215,235,245...those are all various widths in Cm's right?

[L32Projekt]

It's the width of the tire in mm, the next # after that is the aspect ratio, or how high the sidewall is in relation to the width of the tire in % (245/50-16 means the tire is 245 mm wide, the sidewall is 50% of 245mm, on a 16 inch wheel). Hope that clarifies.

Edit: Oops, forgot to add my recommendation:
http://www.discounttiredirect.com/di...odeIndex=38925