General Replacing low profile with other tyres. If possible what's involved?

[GrumpyGran]

Hi all.

We have a 2015 fiat 500 twin air with alloys and low profile tyres as standard. Is it possible to change to non low profile tyres and if so what has to be done to the car (suspension, milometer etc?) to accomodate the change.

We like the car as it suits our needs and is light enough to tow behind the motorhome, but the low profiles in addition to being very noisy, also give less protection on the local bad road surfaces and we've had to replace several springs already, tyres more frequently than we should all of which is outweighing the free road tax and fuel economy.

Weve been looking at other suitable similar age cars but whatever we do its going to cost money, and will need a new tow frame with another car, so wondered if there was an option with the tyres.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

You can go on a website like this

https://tiresize.com/comparison/

Plug in the size of your current tires then up the wall size of the tire by 5. So if you currently has 195/45/16 tires then try 195/55/16 and see what the difference will be. Most people's speedos read under so going up slightly in the wall size of the tire makes very little difference. If you want to make a big change though you will need to down size the wheel, I suspect on the 500 from 2015, 15inch wheels would be the smallest you could go and may be what is already fitted. however if you have particularly low profile tires then its possible you have much bigger wheels like 17 inch.

 

[varesecrazy]

As Andy says ideally you want a smaller wheel

Then a taller tyre will keep the speedo accurate.


Broken springs are a pain aren't they.. I've had a few this year

 

[GrumpyGran]

They are 195/45/16. The milometer variation is minimal going up to the 50 according to that tyre site (thanks Andy). But the extra tread is so minimal that I doubt it will be that helpful, so looks like if we go that route the smaller wheel, with a lot more tyre would be better.

We did look at the smaller engined 500 same year and most have "normal tyres". That would solve the tow frame issue as it should still fit but of course the road tax is no longer £0. Plus I have doubts about the quality of the springs ?

Our road is not good but we can usually avoid the worst of it as we know which bits to avoid. But the state of the roads in general is not good and in traffic you cant avoid it. Theres a couple of sections of the M25 that are absolute bone shakers, I'm actually worrying about whats dropping off the motorhome until we get past it.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

They are 195/45/16. The milometer variation is minimal going up to the 50 according to that tyre site (thanks Andy). But the extra tread is so minimal that I doubt it will be that helpful, so looks like if we go that route the smaller wheel, with a lot more tyre would be better.

We did look at the smaller engined 500 same year and most have "normal tyres". That would solve the tow frame issue as it should still fit but of course the road tax is no longer £0. Plus I have doubts about the quality of the springs ?

Our road is not good but we can usually avoid the worst of it as we know which bits to avoid. But the state of the roads in general is not good and in traffic you cant avoid it. Theres a couple of sections of the M25 that are absolute bone shakers, I'm actually worrying about whats dropping off the motorhome until we get past it.

something like a 185 55 15 would make near as no difference something like 0.4% so at 70mph you'd be doing 70.3mph and anything less than 70 the difference would be smaller, but the speedometer in the car probably under reads by at least 2-3 Mph which you can always check with a GPS speed app on a phone.