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Sidewall

205/70R20

205 mm across the tread, a sidewall 70% of that — 144 mm — on a 20-inch rim. That puts the whole wheel at 31.3 inches tall.

144 mm sidewall795 mm · 31.3"
Sidewall
5.65"
144 mm
Overall
31.3"
795.0 mm
Circumference
98.3"
2.498 m
Revs per mile
644
per minute at 60 mph

What it needs to sit on

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It mounts on a rim between 5.5" and 7.5" wide, and the tread follows the rim: roughly 5 mm of section width for every half-inch, so about 195 mm across at the narrow end and 215 mm at the wide one. Written the way lift kits and wheel wells are, it is a 31.3×8.1R20 — tall by wide, in inches.

What goes wrong on this size

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2 drivers have filed a complaint. 0 of them ended in a crash, and nobody was hurt. Nobody died.

2 of them name what let go, and it is most often blowout. Hankook is named more than any other brand.

What let goComplaints
blowout2

Where the wheel is named, 2 of 2 were on the front — the end that steers.

What fits instead

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Same 20-inch rim, height within 3%. Past that the speedometer starts lying and things begin to rub.


SizeHeightRide heightSpeedo reads 60, you doCompare
225/65R2031.5" +0.7 %+2.8 mm60.4 mphside by side
215/65R2031.0" -0.9 %-3.8 mm59.4 mphside by side
215/70R2031.9" +1.8 %+7.0 mm61.1 mphside by side
225/60R2030.6" -2.1 %-8.5 mm58.7 mphside by side
205/65R2030.5" -2.6 %-10.3 mm58.5 mphside by side
205/75R2032.1" +2.6 %+10.3 mm61.5 mphside by side

Same height, different rim

Bigger rim, same overall height. Sharper steering, harsher ride, and far less rubber between your wheel and the next pothole.


195/80R19156 mm sidewall — 9% more
225/70R19158 mm sidewall — 10% more
235/55R21129 mm sidewall — 10% less
215/60R21129 mm sidewall — 10% less
205/75R19154 mm sidewall — 7% more
235/65R19153 mm sidewall — 6% more

If you fit something taller

A taller tire covers more ground per turn, so the needle reads low and the odometer counts short. Over ten thousand miles on the dial, the last column is what you really drove.


Fitted insteadReads 30Reads 50Reads 70Real miles per 10,000 shown
225/65R2030.2 mph50.3 mph70.5 mph10,069
215/65R2029.7 mph49.5 mph69.3 mph9,906
215/70R2030.5 mph50.9 mph71.2 mph10,176
225/60R2029.4 mph48.9 mph68.5 mph9,786
205/65R2029.2 mph48.7 mph68.2 mph9,742