Guys, I have tried searches without success, but does anyone know how wide I can fit the rear rubber on the stock 9J rim of a 348. Current rubber is 255/45 Thanks
275 45 17 you can go 305 on 18's You can go 245's in the front You can wiggle these numbers by changing ride heights but watch the chassis rake changes
JK: From my experience (which is only based on replacing tires in the stock sizes) DO NOT put on new rear tires without also replacing the front tires. I put new rears only onto my 348, same brand, same size, same speed rating, same tread pattern, and the car handled very, very badly until I replaced the half-worn front tires as well. Your post does not suggest that were going to replace the rears only, I'm tossing out the info just in case.....
NC: Interesting! What brand tires were you replacing? Miine were Bridgestones. Replacing only the rears made the car undriveable, it was all over the road.
P zeros (asymetricos) no noticable difference at all. car tramlines just as wildly as before! HA! no, really. it made no change at all. and i was leary about doing it as i had read your note on that from post months ago. tires have been on for a couple of months now, and car drives great.
NC + Milton, The problem is not the car or the tires but the alignment. Good tires/new tires can mask some misalignment. If you want some awesome change corner weight the car and rest the alignment. Also, before you blame your tires try maintaining the now almost 15 year old suspension in some 348's. There are mnay cars out there that dogtrack , squirm on heavy braking, shimmy at speed and wander at speed due to suspension compliance and alignment. With slick race tires the small changes are even more noticeable. We can use one brand front and one brand rear just to get sizes right and even have different softnest compounds and still tune the car for the tires just fine. IT is your set-up believe me. Also the best alignment is worthless if the old rubber bushings put your suspension all over the place.
Before I bought my 355 I had a 993 Porsche that I replaced the rear tires only. For the first hundered miles or so I thought there was a major suspension problem or something in the rear. It turned out I just needed to wear off the mold release from the new rear tiress. After a few hundred miles everything returned to normal. I suspect that was your problem too -- and that replacing the fronts just gave you 4 slippery tires so it felt "normal" as opposed to only having 2 rear slippery tires.
Thanks guys for the info. I need to replace all 4 tyres as I have a different make of tyre in every corner of the car. The offside has relatively new tyres, the near side are nearly worn. Car feels all over the road, and I suspect some alignment problems, mainly because only the offside has been replaced. I plan to change them all and then get the suspension fully re-aligned.
Guys, There doesn't seem to be a lot of choice in the 275/45 profile, or even 265/45 for that matter. If I go the 275/40 (265/40) profile route, am I upsetting the balance of the car ? Would I need to change the fronts to /40 profiles in order to maintain the rake of the car. Thanks
Buy the tires you like. Put them on car. Set rake per manual I.e. stock ride height. Then lower evenly using motion ratio per manual and Lower your car to where you like it. Then take to alignment shop. If you follow my instructions you will not go wrong.
