What ya’ll running for wheel size ?

shaune

shaune

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
So, next question is .... tire size. What are the popular kids running around on these days ? My choice is going to stay 15 inch . . . Or 16 inch. I have 2 16 inch rims and 2 15 inch rims so either way i have to buy something. As a side note my local tires shop guys says he can not get 14 inch rubber anymore unless it is a trailer tire. My 88 Mustang needs 2 tires and they are 14 inch. I have options but :confused:.
The wheels are needed for the 52 Ford truck.
 
Good day Shaune, both the wife and I are running 15’s.... so far not a problem for rubber. Her Model A uses skinnies on the front which are getting very hard to find in radial. The 55 truck is pretty easy on tires and a common size (width), so no panic there
The “Lee-T” in the shop has Karen’s old tires and wheels under it right now, which I like for height and width separation, (both 15’s). If this is a problem when that car makes it to the road, we may have to re-address.
My son’s g/f has an early fox-body Mustang which they are having troubles finding rims and tires for; in the Medicine Hat area. Never thought 14” tires would get extinct.... I recall the little tires my first several a Honda Civics used, 12” & 13”......very cheep to replace. Lol
Greg
 
We've gone through this once before in the 90's early 2000's, when the auto manufactures stopped using 14's on the cars. I was building the SD, it has 14's and 15's old rodders rake. I had to run used tires for a few years till one of the (Japanese?) started producing cars with 14's again. I haven't looked for 14's lately. Not sure about 15's hoping that this does not become the situation also, I am not particularly a fan of the big wheels. I am running 17's on the Pickup but they are a set of 1936 Chevy rims. I had a time finding rubber for the fronts 17x3 1/4's, ended up running front runners. I would hope that if this becomes the case some of the aftermarket (ie; Coker) would pick up some of the slack here? Not that they would be economical but at least available?
 
My Mustang has 15x15 Centerline Autodrags on the back with Mickey Thompson 15" 19.5x33 Sportsman tires. The front (until I can afford something else) has 15x3-1/2 Weld Pro Stars with some tiny (narrow) all seasons on the front......

As far as Small DOT tires for the front go, back in the day, everyone used to Run the skinny 165SR15 Michelins that were used on VW's & some Volvo's....until Michelin stopped making them.....but COKER has been making them for awhile now, along with some slightly wider ones.....

https://www.cokertire.com/tires/brands/michelin-tires.html

***And remember, any of the TRX tires listed in the above link require TRX Specific rims, as they're a metric tire, and are NOT 15"

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EDIT: And just for giggles, I did a quick search on CDN Tire's website, did a search for 205/70/14's & 195/70/14's, plenty of hits on both.
I'm going to guess that 14's are still available from suppliers, and that any shop that says they can't get 14" rubber just doesn't want to bother with bringing them in??
 
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Thanks James; I will let my son know to check CT for mustang rubber...once he finds the rims he wants.
Cheers
 
I run 185/60-14s on 6 inch wheels on the front and 275/60-15s on 10 inch wheels on the back.
Just bought the 14s last fall and he had 185/65-14 and 185/70- 14 in stock.
The 185/65s shouldn't be hard to find they were standard on Ford Focus.
Although rarer these days the 185/70 was standard on Ford Tempo.
The 185/60 was the sport tire for VW Rabbit.
A 205/50 on a 15x7 is also a front I would fun if I ever find a pair of slots to match the the rears.
Fred

 
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Greg: another option would be to keep an eye on Kijiji, or swap meets for some 15", 16" or 17" alloy wheels off of later Fox cars. If you do the homework on width/diameter, you may be able to do it without screwing up the gearing/speedo reading.

These 15" ten holes are a decent looking wheel, came on Mustang LX, some Fox Thunderbirds, and others...

James

mustang-10-hole-wheel-15x7-79-93


CDNflatlander said:
Thanks James; I will let my son know to check CT for mustang rubber...once he finds the rims he wants.
Cheers
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Fred: Man, Your rear tires look huge next to the fronts.....your rears are almost 11" wide and 28" tall. Then I realize that with mine measuring @ 15" of tread width & 33" tall, your rear tires would fit inside mine:) And both Mickey & Hoosier both have at least one size larger than mine.

James

Sassy said:
I run 185/60-14s on 6 inch wheels on the front and 275/60-15s on 10 inch wheels on the back.
Just bought the 14s last fall and he had 185/65-14 and 185/70- 14 in stock.
The 185/65s shouldn't be hard to find they were standard on Ford Focus.
Although rarer these days the 185/70 was standard on Ford Tempo.
The 185/60 was the sport tire for VW Rabbit.
A 205/50 on a 15x7 is also a front I would fun if I ever find a pair of slots to match the the rears.
Fred

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Ya really happy with my combination.
I put a ton a miles on Sassy so those big tires would get pretty expensive
to run on my car plus I would've had to back half the car to get them in there.
Now that I live where there are twisty roads the Coppers are a better fit anyway.
Southend of Carlsbad Ca.
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One source for 14" would be to tell the supplier your looking for tires for a older late 90's Toyota Tercel.
They all ran 14"
 
I found some 14s at the other local tire shop but they are getting harder to obtain. As for the truck with the debate over 15s or 16s, I haven't decided yet and don't need to pin a choice down just yet. I currently have 4 16" rims and acquired 4 matching 16" worn out tires. This is more to get the project to roll and check ride height, plus I can sit back and see if I like the look of this tire size.
 
What James said above. I suspect a lot of companies just don't want to be bothered. A couple months ago, I called every tire shop in town looking for a couple of 1 1/4 inch wide whitewalls for my F100. My brother had given me a pair from one of his cars, but I needed another two. There were only a couple of tire shops that actually did any looking for me, the others just blew me off.
So, when I came up empty handed, I googled the tire brand that my brother gave me. They weren't top brands by any means, but neither are many others that are readily available ( most made "overseas".) One place that came up on a search was Performance Plus Tire in LA. I called them, and someone actually picked up the phone. They said they had exactly the same brand tire in stock, and size I wanted. Gave them my info, and they said they would be shipped.
Couple days later they call to say the computer said they had those tires, but they looked everywhere, and couldn't find them. Sorry. They said if I wanted to wait, the next slow boat from China would be disembarking tires July 21. I said yes, I would wait. July 24, they called and said the tires were shipped. (interesting though, that they were shipped from their warehouse that just happens to be a few miles down the road from Coker's warehouse in the southeast, near Knoxville, TN.) Three days later they were at the warehouse in Sweetgrass, MT.
It took another few days for the paperwork and customs broker to get their ducks in a row, so my buddy could go down and pick them up. Customs broker has to import them now, due to covid rules.
They are on my truck now, and look pretty good. I'll send pics when we are able to do so. 235/75/15. The tires were inexpensive, ( dare I say cheap), and the total bill, including brokerage, freight, etc. was still only slightly more than 200 bucks cdn per tire, landed here at my house.

It's not the first time in my life that I have had to do the job of the "parts person". They have lots of tire sizes listed, you'd have to call to make sure they actually have them, or can get them. And yes, they are made over "there", but what isn't nowadays? Regardless, there may be an alternative to the locals telling you they aren't available.
 
shaune said:
I found some 14s at the other local tire shop but they are getting harder to obtain. As for the truck with the debate over 15s or 16s, I haven't decided yet and don't need to pin a choice down just yet. I currently have 4 16" rims and acquired 4 matching 16" worn out tires. This is more to get the project to roll and check ride height, plus I can sit back and see if I like the look of this tire size.
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I typically look at tirerack.com and they show a good selection of 14" tires, so they are available. For my project I'm using Crown Victoria suspension that has 12" brakes, so 16" is the minimum rim size that clears the calipers. So if you have or will have big brakes, you probably need to go 16" or larger. I don't want mags so I found hubcapmike.com had 16" snap on discs and Moon has Zeus or screw on discs that hide my shallow dish wheels.
I'm also tossing around the idea of Port-A-walls as Moon and others offer 16" ones. Has anyone here had recent experience with Pot-A-walls??

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On Black Betty, I'm running OEM Chrome 15x6 in front and 15x8 in back with 2.25 inch WW 205/65 on the front and 2.5 inch WW 225/70 on the rears to give me the "California " rake. Front and back tires are from Diamond Back tires.



On the old truck, different story. 17x 8 in front and 18x8 in back
 
Yeah I was having trouble getting 15 inch light truck tires for my truck so on the buick I went for 16 x8 on the front and 17 x 10 on the rear...figured they would be around for awhile...
 
Port-a walls don't work well on radial tires, the sidewalls squirm around too much for them to lay flat. Diamondback has a good variety of whitewall tires and very good quality from my experience.
 

195:65:15 on 6" rims (Front) with 235:75:15 on 7" rims (Rear) - Radials


6.4:15 on 5" rims (Front) with G60:15 on 7" rims (Rear) - Bias-plys

Insofar as my 46 Olds is concerned I'll be running 16-18" diameter steelies front and rear with the same size radial tyres, I just need to determine exact backspacing as I need to clear discs, calipers and fenders and allow sufficient lock to lock on front
 
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