rim sizes

its time to get some winter tires for my Panda 4x4. I've decided to get som white compomotive TH3's as I have had very positive experiences with the compnay's products before on an EVO VI.. bit of an overkill on the little panda.. but they will look really nice against the black exterior..

the standard tyre/rim combo on my climbing version is 185/65 R 14

my question is to all those in the know.. what are the possible sizes of rim that I can put on the car without modification?

thnx

this site seems to suggest a 16" rim, however thats a normal panda, whereas yours may need some investigation

http://www.rochfordtyres.co.uk/fitme...akesearch=Fiat

http://www.fiatforum.com/showthread....ghlight=wheels

You could fit 15" rims on with an offset of 35mm with 195/50 tyres.

Or 16" rims with an offset of 30-35mm with 195/45 tyres.

Personally id go with the 15s.

Thanx for the advice, the only question now is how wide I should get them..

Forgot to say, the offset on the wheels above applies to 7" wide rims.

Ok.. I´m probably exposing my total ignorance, but how do you calculate what size tire will fit on what width of rim..

Since I will be using these rims for my snow tires and will be driving mostly in slippery conditions, I think I should mount some slimmer tires.. so 7 inch width rims seems a bit large. Was thinking more in the terms of 5,5 or 6..

I asked myself the same question when I wanted to fit some mud tyres to my Panda4x4. The smallest I could find were 15/65 205 Colway MT.

You cannot increase the diameter of the tyre because there is no room to the front of back of the wheel arch. Plenty above. So all you can do is increase the diameter of the rim and lower the profile of the tyre.

As these are for winter tyres I would suspect that the rim size would be determined by the type of tyre you intend to put on.

Good snow/winter tyres tend to be narrow with a high profile so you're looking at 13/70 or 14/65. 165 or 185 else they will be too wide and not dig into the snow.

As the Panda4x4 Climbing comes fitted with 14/65 185 Pirelli Snow Control 190s (the best on the market in my view), would you not be better sticking with these for the winter and getting some 16/55 205s on streetshagger alloys for the summer?

I know, I know. Not my car. Just my opinion.

Having said all that, I'd love to see a 4X4 with bigger rims. I think they'd look great

BTW Snow is due in the UK on Thursday night. I'm setting my alarm early so I can go out for an early morning play Friday and beat the snow ploughs. I'm so excited.

What are the other snow tyres you have? I'd be very interested as it gets snowy where I live too.
I found this when I was trying to calculate my mud tyres.
http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible.html. It's a bit too technical for my small brain and frankly very boring but there are two calulators on the page. A rim-width calculator and tyre size calculator. They are about half way down the page.

Just checked out the alloys you're after. Stunning. I can see exactly what you are trying to do now.
The site I found them on only did them in 15 and 17 inch, the narrowest being 6 inch. So for 15 X 6 inch rims, according to the above calculators, you could have 165/65 X 15 or 185/60 X 15, but the 165s would be on the very edge of the limit for the wheels. If you scraped the curb? Ouch
Unless you can get these rims in 5.5.

I need to know what rubber you will be using that will out perform the pirellis. Please tell.

Fiat offers the new Panda Cross with 175/65/15 tyres which surprised me since it keeps the same profile (65)

Thanks for the link Lanchester.. Yes, I think I'll resist the urge to fry my brain with all the data and just stick with the very helpful and mindless calculators..

Appreciate that you like the look of the rims. They really are top quality as well, you will find that a lot of race and especially rally cars are mounted with compomotives.. yeah yeah, overkill, I know. But they will look great.. especially after I put on some snow-camo vinyls on the roof racks and lower body panels. and add some nice white mudguards.. juvenile, yes.. but fun.. it should even manage to turn some heads in Verbier, hehe

I currently have the Bridgestone Dueller 185/65 R14 mud and snow tires that came with the car. For the alpine winter use I have planned for the panda, I feel it is wise to get some real snow tires. I always thought that the Bridgestone Blizzaks were the best friction winter tires.. but I’m not extremely up to date when it comes to the current market offerings..

When it comes to tire width, I understand that the thinner the better.. but I wonder how big the difference between a 165 and 205 really is, especially on a 4wheel drive car… For instance, I’ve had no problem shooting up the mountain in snow-storms when I had a Porsche 996 turbo mounted with blizzaks.. Can’t remember the width but they were very fat indeed, standard for the rear is 295 and the winter tires weren’t too far off. People would pull off to the side of the road and put on chains but I would just keep on motoring.. if it ever got a little sideways all I had to do was hit the gas-pedal and wait for the 4wd to dig in..

Anyway.. here are the alternatives in size as far as I can tell.. now I only need to choose the brand and model of tire and limit the choices to which of these sizes it is available in.. I think? So which are the best winter tires out right now?

For a 15inch rim the TH3's are available in 5.5x15 through 7x15 (no 16 inch but there is a 17). I could go with 165/65, 175/60, 195/55, 205/50 on the 5.5x15s. Would there be any reason to choose a wider rim than the 5.5s if I wanted to use one of the three wider tire options?

For a 16 inch rim I would have to choose the TH2 (which is also nice, it’s what I had on my evo) that is available in 5.5x16 and 7x16.. so I could go 185/50, 195/50 or 205/45.

I will only be using the Panda during the winter months, so I’m inclined to get the nice big rims on my winter tires since I will never mount the summer ones again.. but I like the TH3s more than the TH2s so I just don’t know anymore..

..have added som pics so everyone understands what I'm talking about.

JBL AKA James Bond
I have just come across these reviews of snow tyres.

winter 2004/05 Tyre tests.

http://www.oeamtc.at/netautor/html_s...esamt_195.html

http://www.autokiste.de/start.htm?si.../0509/4642.htm

http://www.autosieger.de/article7431.html

Snow chains ....

http://www.oeamtc.at/tests/ketten/

So that not everything is lost in the translation .....

Trocken = dry
Nass = wet
Schnee = snow
Eis = Ice
Komfort = comfort
Aussengeräusch = outside noise
Rollwiderstand = rolling resistance
Verschleiß = wear
ÖAMTC Empfehlung = rating
empfehlenswert = recommendable
Sehr = very
bedingt = conditionally
nicht = not
Sieg Heil = Hail Victory

The lower the number the better. e.g. the Goodyear Vector 5 gets a rating of 4,1 (comma's = decimal point in german) for snow which is Scheiß (crap / poo-poo).


Hope they are of use