Tires

tripp · Post by **tripp** » Fri May 07, 2004 7:58 am

I'm getting some new tires today for my 87 SR5 4wd and was wondering if anyone has any recommendations. I'm mainly looking for a an economical price with a decent ride and traction. Also, the car currently has 185/70/13's on it and I've been told by a couple of people that I should go back to the original 175/70/13 size to increase gas mileage and to increase pep in taking off. As everyone knows, those 75 horses struggle sometimes, especially when the AC is on! I've looked at the Kumho 758's and 195's as well as the Toyo Spectrums. There are specials on all of these tires now, ranging from around $200 for the 758's to $224 for the 795's to $260 for the Toyos (all prices are out the door including tax). Please let me know what your experiences and or recommendations are. Thanks.

GTSSportCoupe · Post by **GTSSportCoupe** » Fri May 07, 2004 11:26 am

You might consider moving to a 14" rim before buying new tires. 185/60/R14 will give you the same outer diameter (thus same gearing) as the OEM spec'ed 175/70/R13 or 155/80/R13. Advantages of the 14" rim are mainly a lower profile tire which will provide better handling. There are many 14" rims out there that will fit on the tercel. Basically anything with a 4x100mm bolt pattern and a fwd offset (~39mm is good). Probably one of the easiest to find that will work best is the Toyota MR2 14"x5.5" +39mm offset alloy rims. There is a long list on this site of rims that will work. I'd try to stick with Toyota though. Toyota rims use a central hole on their rims that keeps the rim centred properly on the hub.

I'm using rims from a fwd Corolla GTS; they are awesome. I'm running 185/55/R14 Kumho Ecsta Supra 712 tires on them which are a little higher performance than I need, but provide amazing handling on the street for summer use. I have winter tires (155/80/R13) mounted on 13" tercel alloy rims. I find the skinny pizza cutter tires with a high profile provide great traction in snow and on ice.

Anyhow, about your tires. I would recommend sticking with the factory recommended outer diameter. I guess the particular tire you choose depends on what you use your car for. You may want aggressive all seasons if you go 4wding and get snow in your area. You may want touring tires if you spend most of your time on the highway. You might want snow tires if you only use the car in winter. Or you might want just a decently priced good all round tire (sounds like this is what you want from what you have said). I'm not too familiar with the exact tires you have mentioned, but I would recommend reading up on them on the internet. Many of the online tire places have a spot where people review each tire. Read through the reviews and see what you think.

Maybe you don't care to put in this much effort though; just some ideas for you.

takza · Post by **takza** » Fri May 07, 2004 1:55 pm

I have 14" Escort steel wheels with Kumho Ectsa 195/60 tires. There is a world of difference between the budget type tires and these tires with 14" wheels.

Makes the car much more stable and fun to drive. These are about 2% greater in diameter than stock.

I did lose 5 MPG when going from oversized 175/80/13 tires to these though. But I ran these tires at a hard 32 PSI to avoid the sloppy handling they gave.

tirerack.com is about the best place to research tires....I went with the average reviews on the Kumho Ecstas HP4 716 and have been real happy with them...good price ($36 each), good in winter. in the mud, and on the road. Have to run these at an atypically high pressure....42-44 PSI....they still soak up the bumps.

Most if not all of the 155/80/13 or 175/70/13 tires are not going be be much in the traction dept...most will be budget tires with a harder tread. I could have bought a set of Douglas tires at Walmart for around $27 each...but I would have been right back where I started.