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Sidewall

225/45R15

225 mm across the tread, a sidewall 45% of that — 101 mm — on a 15-inch rim. That puts the whole wheel at 23.0 inches tall.

101 mm sidewall584 mm · 23.0"
Sidewall
3.99"
101 mm
Overall
23.0"
583.5 mm
Circumference
72.2"
1.833 m
Revs per mile
878
per minute at 60 mph

What it needs to sit on

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It mounts on a rim between 6" and 8.5" wide, and the tread follows the rim: roughly 5 mm of section width for every half-inch, so about 213 mm across at the narrow end and 238 mm at the wide one. Written the way lift kits and wheel wells are, it is a 23.0×8.9R15 — 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. Goodyear 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 15-inch rim, height within 3%. Past that the speedometer starts lying and things begin to rub.


SizeHeightRide heightSpeedo reads 60, you doCompare
205/50R1523.1" +0.4 %+1.3 mm60.3 mphside by side
245/40R1522.7" -1.1 %-3.3 mm59.3 mphside by side
215/45R1522.6" -1.5 %-4.5 mm59.1 mphside by side
235/45R1523.3" +1.5 %+4.5 mm60.9 mphside by side
215/50R1523.5" +2.1 %+6.3 mm61.3 mphside by side
235/40R1522.4" -2.5 %-7.3 mm58.5 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.


255/35R1689 mm sidewall — 12% less
195/45R1688 mm sidewall — 13% less
205/55R14113 mm sidewall — 11% more
225/40R1690 mm sidewall — 11% less
225/50R14113 mm sidewall — 11% more
215/40R1686 mm sidewall — 15% less

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
205/50R1530.1 mph50.2 mph70.3 mph10,043
245/40R1529.7 mph49.4 mph69.2 mph9,889
215/45R1529.5 mph49.2 mph68.9 mph9,846
235/45R1530.5 mph50.8 mph71.1 mph10,154
215/50R1530.6 mph51.1 mph71.5 mph10,214