Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Looking at getting new tyres as the old ones are cracking at the sides!!
Only had the car for a month or two and trying to get it back into as good a condition as possible "within reason".
Ive had the belts, rollers, wheel bearings replaced,and now its time for tyres!
Its a 1985 early 944 with ronal wheels fitted,
tyres at the moment are 205 55 16 fronts with 225 50 16 rears.
I spoke with a tyre fitter today who told me that these tyres are not suitable as the percentages are not close enough!!
205 55= 92.5/ 225 50=112.5
I have had a good look at the wheels and cant find out much info on them. The only thing i managed to find was the ronal part number :- kba 40794, googled this and apparently they are 8"x16" but cant seem to find anything else!!
The rears do look like they rub from time to time but nothing serious!!
If these are 8" allround! are these to wide???
Or what would be a better tyre size? 205 50 16s or are these too thin on a 8" rim.
many thanks
kevin

Find another tyre fitter These are standard Lux sizes & perfectly correct assuming it is somewhere near 7" Fr & 8" Rears.

Hiya Kev, those tyre sizes seem perfect to me! Only 0.5mm overall difference between them

205-55-16 actually = 112.75mm
225-50-16 = 112.5


i have 7j/ 8j stagger on my mr2 running 205-45-16 and 225-40-16 respectively, difference = 4.5mm so your combo works out even better

i wouldn't put a 205 on a 8j but then again you're used to running stretched tyres

The tyre fitter is talking rubbish, standard fit for oval dash (mid '85 onwards) is 205/55 front and 225/50 rear when running on 16inch wheels, I see no reason why that should not be the case on earlier 944's. The only thing I will say is are your offsets correct? this may account for the rubbing.

Howard

Fitter is correct,
The wheels are all 8" so a 205 tyre is to small
Stretch tyres on my dubs only!!!
kevin

True but that isn't what he originally wrote! He'll have to go to 225width.

he has 8Js all round sitting flush with the arches

was gona suggest staggering the rears to 235 but it mentions rubbing time to time. There is the Falken ze512's which have a pretty rounded shoulder which might help.

Since you left earlier on tonight,
He has e mailed me a few prices over,falken was one of the tyres listed.
spoke to the previous owner who placed these wheels on the car and he run 225s all round.
I think the last owner put any old crap tyres"second hand" on,as everyone is a different brand and as you seen are very old!!!
And as everyone has stated above this size would have been correct on staggered rims,just dont think he checked the width.
The tyre fitter gets so many sets of tyres to change from me on a monthly basis he got mixed! and has allready admited he got these alloys mixed up with my 10x 16 schmitzs,so i cant argue with that.
kevin

i have 225-40-16 Falken ze512s on the rear of my mr2, you can pop round and see what you think. They have a reduced contact patch imo