Changing my tires

Question

I have a Dodge Charger SE 2006. I'm currently using a 235/55/17 tires. I would like to know if I can change it to 255/75/17. Thanks in advace.

Answer 1

First be aware that actual tire size can vary by brand and use. An off road tire will be a different dimension from road performance or rain tire. Identical tires dimensions, can be different if mounted on a wider or narrower wheel. On line research shows some basic guidelines. A 235/55/17 is listed as having a 27.2 inch diameter by 9.3inch wide footprint. A 255/75/17 is listed as having a 32.1inch by 10 inch wide footprint. As a starting point if you don't have an additional 3 inches between the tire tread and the wheel well opening front, rear and top it won't fit. Another contact point can be the strut, you will need an additional 1/2 inch between the tire and strut 3 inches higher than the current tire.

Answer 2

It depends what you are trying to accomplish.

Swapping to a wider and taller tire will have your speedometer lie to you: in your case, you will actually be travelling 18% faster than what your speedometer will be indicating (better get ready for a basket full of speeding tickets!), simply because the car doesn't know how fast you are really going, it only knows how much the axle is spinning and it does some simple math from that by using the tire size it had when it left the factory.

If you are looking at fitting wider tires to have more traction, you need a tire with a narrower sidewall (the middle number) so that the tire diameter and circumference remain the same of your current tires.

• If you want to use the same rim size, 255/50/17 would work, your speedometer would only be off by 0.7%.
• If you want to fit larger rims (18 inches), you can fit 255/45/18 or 265/45/18 or even 285/40/18 (all off by 0.7%), or 295/40/18 (off by 0.4%)

Feel free to play around this site to figure out other tire sizes you may use. First, look at the sticker inside your door to find what tire size your car came with from the factory, because according to this other site, it wasn't 235/55/17.