My car is a 2017 VW Jetta. My current tires are Firestone 205/55R16 91H M+S and they desperately need to be changed. Got a friend that works at a junkyard that found previously said tires for me and I want to make sure that they’ll fit on the wheel before I waste his time. Will they or won’t they?
Fitting the wheel isn’t the issue. Fitting inside your wheel well could be. R16 is your wheel size so they’ll fit on the wheel. Based on this calculator:
Your tire will be 0.5 inches taller which will throw off your speedometer by 3.3% (not the end of the world, shouldn’t be an issue fitment wise). But your width will be almost 9% bigger which will almost certainly rub when you turn your wheel to it’s fullest. This isn’t the end of the world, you just lose some turn radius. If your car is lowered it might not fit at all, but you’d have to be entering stance nation territory for it to be that much of an issue.
Also be careful with old tires. Just because they have good tread doesn’t mean they’re safe in even slightly damp conditions. I had some 9 year old tires on my Miata and those things were unsafe the second things got damp. I had 0 traction in that car in or after any rain.
The tires look fairly fresh. If I was able to post pictures, I would, and my jetta is all stock, so that’s nothing to worry about about. However the rubbing is something I’ll have to look out for because that’s just going to cause degradation on the inside of the wheel well right?
My ultimate goal is to keep it legal or else my neighborhood will tow it with warning. I live in a big city with little U-turns, so I could get away with the inspection and get better fitting tires and re-sell if need be right?
There’s honestly a chance you could fail for it being too far out of the normal size. But the person inspecting probably isn’t checking for that. If it’s just to pass inspection then that should work.
