Advice Needed on Tires

Seriously non-poultry related. I hope nobody minds, and I hope nobody gets mad. I need some help with tire sizes for my car. Stop reading if it's annoying you. Please keep on if you can help. Thank you in advance.

I have an '04 Toyota Matrix with winter 205 55R16 tires on it now. I need summer/all-seasons, and have been offered a practically new set at 215 65R16.

Will these fit my rims and the car?

Thanks for any help. I am asking here because it's not an option for me to phone around on Monday as I'll be on the road and at a career fair all day, and they will be delivered to me Monday night at a course I'm taking if they fit my car...so I am hoping to find out before Monday morning.

Really appreciate it. [code]

I like vehicle questions. Is the Toyota 4 wheel drive or 2 wheel drive?

Here are the issues I have with tires on my '07 Matrix. The rims are 16 inches. They take a low profile tire. An expensive tire. The wheel well clearance is large enough for a regular tire and without taking anything else into consideration I bought regular winter tires- not low profile. Now this is not a problem until we get a big snow build up and I have to plow that car through deep snow. The snow builds up in the wells and on many occasions has frozen and locked my rear wheels tights. The front wheels turn (front wheel drive) and the locked rear wheels drag behind. Nothing budges until my husband drapes the rear with a tarp and places electric heaters beneith to unfreeze the rear wheels.

Make sure the new tires have the same profile if you want to drive successfully in the winter.

I suspect a different profile may also throw off your spedometer and odometer.

Sue

I've done a little goggling. I think that the tires will fit the rims, but as Sue says there may be a problem fitting the vehicle with larger tires. If there is not a lot of room in the wheel wells I would not go to bigger tires. Sometimes there may be room if you didn't need to turn and then the tire can contact the vehicle frame. For various reasons in the past I have used bigger than stock tires and even paid a penalty for doing so with a burned out transmission on a 4 wheel drive trying to pull a trailer in snow.

Here is an added bit of humor. The special 16" wheels come with a special lock nut that you need a special tool to use to remove the special tire. If you take the car to a mechanic make sure he returns your special tool or else when you go to change your own tires you will not be able to get them off. The special replacement tool would have cost me $70 so I had regular nuts put on, thus opening me up to people who wish to steal my expensive 16" rims and their expensive low profile tires. Sheesh!

My Toyota Tacoma truck has 15" wheels, regular, far less expensive tires and plenty of clearance!

Sue

Those tires SHOULD fit, but I would ask a Toyota Dealership to be sure. A quick phonecall should do. You don't have a huge amount of wheel clearance in the Matrix. They will certainly fit on the rims, it's the car itself that may be an issue. Mostly wheel rub in the wheel wells when it comes to bumps and tight turns. The tires you are looking at are less than 1/2 and inch wider, no big deal there, and just over an inch larger in radius (the measurement from the center of the tire to the outside edge). That is what you will need to be concerned about.

The new tires will also be turning less revolutions per mile (approximately 60), so it will affect your speedometer slightly, but not a huge amount. Mostly in the higher speeds upwards of 90 km/h. I would guess you would be about 5 km out at 90 km/h.

Thank you all! I knew I'd get some good answers.

The car is an AWD.

I will call a dealership/shop, I just wanted to have some info before hand because I thought I might get told "no - you need to come in and buy another set - those will NEVER work!!". So I am arming myself with a little info.

Sue, that's terrible about your car freezing up! The tires I'm looking at are for non-winter season driving. I have a pair of snows on now that I left on all last summer because I couldn't afford new all-seasons.

Thanks again, and thanks Hidden for moving this.

I can't believe you didn't phone me! Have you lost your mind! Do you not realize we are like tire fiends?

You want oversize tires on your car? J will come over and yank out some inner fenders and you jam them fat babies under there! There may be some rubbing but that's no biggy. Maybe you want a lift? One inch body, one inch suspension...Farmchiq, we can tweak that ride of yours! Then snap some 33s on there, woohee, you're in one hot unit.

uno wrote:I can't believe you didn't phone me! Have you lost your mind! Do you not realize we are like tire fiends?

You want oversize tires on your car? J will come over and yank out some inner fenders and you jam them fat babies under there! There may be some rubbing but that's no biggy. Maybe you want a lift? One inch body, one inch suspension...Farmchiq, we can tweak that ride of yours! Then snap some 33s on there, woohee, you're in one hot unit.

I can see it now, the backwoods redneck liftkit with hockey pucks and two by fours.....not that I would know anything about that...

Uno I didn't know J did foreign.

I did call Cdn. Tire (all the Toyota dealers are closed today) and the young man thought they were much too big. I'm going to call some dealerships on Tuesday (my first opportunity) and see what they think. My issue is that the turn out and in my driveway twice a day will definitely cause them to rub if rubbing is a risk, so I need to see how bad it will be for the car etc. Free tires are very tempting but not if I'm eventually going to wear out my well, or worse, put my fronts in disrepair and have a high speed blowout because I was trying to be thrifty.

Way to be, Hillbilly. Hubby read that and shouted, "Hockey pucks! Eureka!" And ran off to Canadain Tire. Hillbilly, you are in so much trouble!

It seems to me that the bigger tires are used on the same rim sizes on some other models of Toyotas. Tire shops, and dealerships may be reluctant to recommend bigger tires because there have been some mistakes made. For one thing death wobble may be caused by bigger than stock tires. The tires you are proposing are one size bigger and may work just fine. You may be able to keep Uno's better half from applying vehicle surgery.

I am imagining a lift kit on a sleek, low, Matrix. I am imagining climbing up into a Matrix. The picture isn't quite there, nor is it very pretty, Uno. But then, you have always had it in for Toyota, haven't you? Admit it! You would love to see one looking foolish!

Sue

I've seen MANY Toyotas looking foolish. But Sue, you are correct, there is no graceful way to flop yourself up into a truck with a 10" lift on 36" tires. You just do a quick shoulder check to make sure no one is watching. I personally do not drive one of these monsters, the kid does, but she has sacrificed more than one pair of jeans to the inelegant procedure of getting in her truck.

uno wrote:Way to be, Hillbilly. Hubby read that and shouted, "Hockey pucks! Eureka!" And ran off to Canadain Tire. Hillbilly, you are in so much trouble!

When I was a teen, we lifted a Jeep Cherokee with hockey pucks and two by fours and stuffed 44's under it. The next mod it got was a complete roll cage.