My daughter has a 2004 S40 and it needs new tires. It has the factory recommended size of 215/50R16 on it now. However, there seem to be very few manufacturers making this tire size now and the options are very limited. Most of the choices I found are high performance summer tires with directional treads. I would prefer not to have directional treads since they can't be cross rotated and are reported to be extremely noisy.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I am no expert on tires and this is very confusing. Are there any other sizes that can be substituted that offer more traditional options?

She lives in Kansas City. Hot in the summer, cold and snow in the winter so an all season tire would seem desireable. High performance not required. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Yes you can substitute tires sizes by varying the sidewall to tread width ratio so that the overall diameter remains close. This is to keep your speedo from being too far off. There are limits as to how wide or skinny you can use tho. I looked up the tires on my 2005 and compared them to your daughters tires and got pretty close with 205/55R16. The speedo error runs 1.65%. The choices in tires are amazing though. I bought Michelin all season tires with a 60k mile warranty. My local shop also had Michelins with a 90k mile warranty!

 

I discovered that Tirerack.com has a tire substitute calculator on their website. Their substitute recommendation was for 205/50R16. Does anyone see any problems using this tire? It appears that the speedo will run about 1.61% fast.

 

Just bought a set of Falken Ziex ZE-612 in 215/50R16 for my daughter's new 2004 S40. A relatively good mid-range quality tire. 40K tread wear warranty.

Very happy with them, quiet and excellent in the rain here in So Cal.

Don't know about snow/ice, probably bad for those conditions---but then you really should have studded or M+S winter tires, not all seasons. No such thing as a tire that runs good in all weather extremes, but this tire may be a good choice.

 

I looked at that tire. The reviews I read weren't so good on snow so that's why I am looking at different sizes. Don't need studded tires, not even legal any longer.