The previous owner installed 205 65 R15 tires on this car. The tread seems good but the traction is crap. The spec per the door sticker is 195 60 R15. Any thoughts on why someone would install bigger tires? Any feedback on the optimal all season tires for this car?

thanks all...

 

If you're referring to poor rear wheel drive traction and are looking for the best winter traction, then in my opinion you have to skip "all season" tires altogether and purchase true WINTER tires for the rear. If you're talking overall front and rear traction on wet roads or something like that, you can ignore the rest of this.

I ran a number of all season tires for over 15 years. But when I finally took my brother's advice and went to winter tires, first on an 850 FWD then later on my current car a 960 RWD, it made and makes all the difference in the world, even on a FWD car. The traction is truly a night and day difference.

In my opinion one has to bite the bullet and buy 2 extra tires, snow tires. There are many name brand offerings plus one or two somewhat cheaper (but not cheap) lesser known brands. But go for something with an aggressive winter tread pattern and put up with the additional road noise at highway speeds. If you don't have an extra pair of wheels to keep the winter tires mounted on, ready to go, then you'll have to suck it up and pay to have the winter tires mounted for the winter time then removed late in the winter or very early spring.

There is no substitute for true winter tires. No all season tires are the same. Here are a few examples. You can see the tread pattern is more aggressive than all season tires.




This one is studded, even better but noiser.

 

Winter tires have a major advantage over all seasons in snow and ice. They have more aggressive side lugs which is what grabs the snow and are a softer rubber compound which can better grab ice. One other strategy for snowy locales (like here in New England) is to run narrower tires for your winter treads. Wide meats can "float" on top of snow where narrow tires can cut through to get to the blacktop. So for your car, if the OEM size is 195/60-15, you can also consider 185/65-15 as your winter tire.

As to why the PO installed the 205/65s - probably had them from another vehicle or got a good price. These tires are taller than spec, which will cause the speedo to be off by 4% (ie indicate 67 when you are going 70) due to the longer rolling circumference.

 

Thanks all - I'm in the PNW so snow at 400 ft is rare here. Traction on wet surfaces - the rear end can easily be persuaded to let go, just wondering if the 205s have a smaller contact patch or if that's more a combination of torque/live rear axle. The car does look noticeably funny with the 205s.

 

slippery in wet could be an alignment issue, worn shocks, worn suspension bushings, old hard tires etc. Check out tire rack's web site for info on tire ratings etc to see which models rated highest for wet handling. You probably want to go with all seasons with good siping to drain off the water. One benefit of going back to the 195/60s is chains will fit if you ever go up to the mountains. :-)