Okay, I've done a long search on this and mostly I find discussions related to 16" rims. I need advice on 15s.

I have 15" but I want the handling of 245/50/16s. which 15" tire size/brand would get me closest to the handling characteristics of a 245/50/16? Will any? I need to hear from guys who have actually driven different 15" tires and whether or not you see a difference.

assume for now I will not upgrade to 16" rims at all. long story, don't ask. If no 15s will get me close to the 16s I mentioned, then I'll probably can the idea. I run 215/65/15s right now but I want a noticeable improvement in handling/cornering. she's strictly a daily driver. thanks for any advice.

 

I think 235-60-15's are best size for a 15 inch wheel for daily driving. I have them and they handle perfect so it's really up to you

 

who makes your 235/60/15s?

 

I'm running Goodyear Eagle GT II 255/60R15. They're holding up pretty good so far. Just remember to wear off the release mold before you start pushing to hard or judging.

 

Although I can't decide what tire size is right for you, I can tell you what I intended on doing on my own car which has a quite similar setup.

Right now I have an "off-brand" tire (Regal Questas) in the size of 205/65R15 which are ok for average daily driving but do not have good traction in wet conditions, nor do they hook well off WOT off-the-line situations. Conversely, they aren't great at stopping either... especially when road conditions are less the perfect.

That said, I started doing some research on tires that offered good daily driving characteristics as well as performance oriented characteristics as mentioned above. And although I am willing to spend a good amount of money on tires, I didn't want to break the bank on tires that were just going on a daily driver anyway. I have since decided to purchase the Yokohama AVS dB S2 tires for my car.

Although I do not know anyone who personally uses these tires (or even Yokohamas for that matter), the company claims that the tires offer a good balance between ride quality, road noise and performance handling.

Tirerack.com has numerous reviews by people who drive all sort of different vehicles, and the majority of reviews of these tires have nothing but good things to say about them. Of course, user reviews should always be taken with a grain of salt, but when you compare the average scores of this tire to others, the Yokohamas do very well.

Tirerack.com also has their own review of the tires where they pitted the Yokohamas up against three other comparable tires. I won't go into the detail about the test itself (you can read it yourself at the website), but the only tire to beat the Yokohamas in all out handling tests were the Pirelli P Zero Neros, which only come in sizes for 16" wheels or larger.

Finally, at ~$300 for a set of four tires, they are quite afforable for my budget. Obviously the prices vary depending on what size you buy, but the 225/60VR15 are "only" $71 per tire. This is the size I intend to buy for my own car.

Everyone has different standards and budgets for their cars, though, and I encourage you to do some research to find what tire will work best with your car. I hope this long essay of a post has helped you narrow down what you might be looking for though. Good luck!

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

Nate86, I've been considering 225/60/15s also. I figure they give you more patch, less aspect than the 215/65s I have now, and still fit my rim. And yes, those Yokohamas are affordable (which is always a plus for me). If you get them soon, post your opinion of them to this thread. I'll be interested in hearing what you think.

 

I've got 235/60's and they do alright. They're the BFG VR4's. the sidewall is a little too soft for my liking though.

 

i run 245/50/15's on the rear and 225/60/15's on the front. i have no problems with the tires at all(offbrand of kelley chargers) they called foxfire starfox's i dump the clutch off the line at 4,000 and i have little wheelspin, say maybe at most 2' before they fully catch and i am gone.

 

Do you have any pics? I'm curious to see how that looks since 245/50/15's seem to look too short on just about everthing and the 225/60's should be at least 1" taller in the front.

 

i can take some tomm morning when i get home for you, just remember that the paint sucks, and the ear tires only have like 15# in them, as i haven't been able to drive it cause i blew the clutch at the track about 2 weeks ago. actually there is only like 1/2 inch of difference and it really isn't noticeable.
oops. (i just reread my last post) i think that the rears may be 60 series not 50 series tires. eithor way i will check when i take the pics for you.

 

Just thought I'd give a heads up to the original poster. I ordered these tires yesterday off of tirerack.com. Got a nail embedded inside my rear passenger tire, so decided to go ahead and grab them now instead of worrying about the old tires. Total cost was $325 to my door.

They should be here by tomorrow, and I will hopefully be putting new shocks and struts on today. I'll let you know the difference when I get them on.

EDIT: Sorry, I am an idiot. Forgot to mention I was talking about the Yokohamas that I wrote about earlier in the thread.

 

I have 255/60/15's in the back and 235/60/15's in the front. I just purchased the firestone firehawk indy 500's. They cost me 420 mounted and balanced. I did research on tirerack for two weeks before deciding on these or the yokohama es100's or yoko avid s/t's. I wanted a performance tire with at least an "S" rating. For dry traction/wet traction and tire wear, noone came close to the firehawks, especially not the goodyear nascar eagle II's I had originally planned on getting. The reason for two different size tires is because I like the "raked" look on my thirdgen. The yoko es100's are an excellent tire but they appeared to be a low profile tire and I didnt want that. The avid s/t's were my second choice. A friend of mine who has a 2001 T/A just bought the yoko es100's and he loves them. Awesome traction and hard to break loose. Great in the rain too.

 

thanks for the info guys. I'm taking notes on everything you're suggesting.

I notice a lot of you have different sizes front and back. aside from appearance, do you find that configuration gives you better handling/control? It seems to me a smaller tire in the front gives you better turning and steering control and a larger rear keeps you planted. am I right? I have LN 215/65s on my front...maybe I should just get 2 larger rear tires instead of paying for 4 new ones. My rear tires are wearing out now anyway, and will need replacing soon.

Nate86, thanks for the update. Looking forward to hearing your opinion.

 

Got the Yokohama's mounted and balanced today.

My initial thoughts of the tire were about how cool the tread pattern looks for a 15" tire. There aren't many 15" tires that have aggressive tread patterns, and these actually look like the car was made to handle. Along with the ContiExtreme Contacts, these tires probably have the most "sporty" tread pattern around.

Regardless of how they look, what really matters is how it handles. I wasn't able to push them hard today due to a downpour occuring right after I had them installed, but I have to say that the tires grip and handle excellent in wet conditions. The tires turned very predictably in low speed sharp turns. They did not give me the "wobbly" feeling that the other tires gave me when the rear end was about to break loose. I didn't really test off-the-line grip because of the rain, but I did give it a bit of throttle (possibly 60-75%) and the tires spun for a second and then caught traction. I'm sorry to say that I can't really give you a good comparison between all of my tires because my first set of tires were the dry rotted original Goodyear tires and the other set was just plain crappy in wet conditions.

I can't comment too much about road noise because my exhaust is too loud to hear road noise during city driving anyway. I can say that the ride is slightly smoother than the other tires though, which somewhat surprised me since these are in the category of "Ultra-high Performance All-Season."

Total cost of the tires and mounting/balancing fees was about $360.

All in all, I'd definately recommend you give these tires a try. I haven't really been able to give them a good "once over" but just the wet condition handling performance has me impressed already. I can't wait to see how these tires handle under dry conditions.

 

Go with 235-60-15s best tire size in my opinion and btw my tires are called Hercules(made by Cooper), not really popular but they look good and give very good traction.

 

The only tire I would consider fromTirerack in a 235/60-15 is a Pirelli P600 hands down. There is nothing else even close to its peformance and safety ratings. The tire is out of its league compared to others in its size. You are not going to get any grip out of a tire with a 400 treadwear- the Pirellis have a 180 TW and a "W" speed rating. They manufacture that size for the XJS Jaguars to have a very high quality 15" tire to use safely in spirited driving potential of the XJS.

 

I've been running 235/60 15s for many years now on stock 15" firebird wheels and I love 'em. When I ran bigger tires on the rear, they stuck out of the rim too much on the sides for my comfort. Like I said, I was using stock wheels. Almost everybody has their own specific "best tire ever" tire pick, but I think most can agree that 235s fit stock 15" wheels best.
Me personally, I like BFGs, but that's me.

 

I don't know about that. It actually ranks at the very bottom of it's tire category on TireRack and is below two other sets of tires that are also made by Pirelli. Just because it was made for XJS Jaguars doesn't mean it will perform as well on any other car. Not to mention if the person buying the tires is REALLY into handling performance, he/she would probably upgrade to 16" or 17" wheels to take advantage of the better tire selection available.

These are really expensive tires as well. At $141 per tire, you're looking at almost $600 to finally be able to have them on your car.

 

Nate, you are falling into the trap of trusting survey review #'s on tireracks website. Don't look at the comparison 1-10 results that any yahoo that buys a pair can rate a cheap passenger car tire a "10". You need to look at the test results done on a test track in braking distance, wet and dry traction, and lap times on those particular tires on the same test car.

A Jaguar owner is not about to change some notaligic 15" factory rims for some aftermarket 16" rims and ruin the look and value of the automobile- Its a classic Jaguar look.

 

that’s the sad thing, there really is no good reason for larger diameter setups in most cases besides that it’s hard to get good tread compounds/designs in wide 15’s

 

I am aware they are customer reviews, but unless you have some links that provide the information and test data you are talking about, how can you prove that they are indeed "the best" tire for 15" wheels? The link I posted for the Yokohamas has test data, but I haven't seen anything from you or tirerack that tells me how good these are in comparison to other tires in the same category.

I wasn't referring to a Jaguar owner changing their wheels, either. This is an f-body board after all. I meant that the average thirdgen f-body owner would probably rather have better wheels than the dinky 15x7 that came with the car if they are really into their car's handling performance.

 

Nate, you're unbelievable.

The guy above is asking about the best tire for a 15" rim in a 235/60-15 size. The Pirelli P600 is hands down the best tire that Tirerack sells in a 15" tire for our cars. It is a "W" speed rated tire in comparison to everything else they sell being a crappy "S" or a "T" rating. The treadwear is 180 where everything else in that size is a 400 or higher meaning a very soft and grippy compound tire. Has stiffer sidewalls so the tire does not deform at higher speeds, thus it will handle better than the others at lower speeds also. It has a nice square block tread pattern. And I can tell you from "first hand"experience hands down it is a far better tire that the crappy BFG radial T/A- I have owned both.

 

I ran a set of 185-65-15 Pirelli P600 on my Karmann Ghia I sold awhile back. 15" performance tires are fading away but Pirelli still only makes the P600 in the 235-60-15 size so the vintage Jaguar owners still have a performance 15" tire in their sizes- it happens to be the same size F-bodys with 15" rims need. $141 per tire is not outragous by any means for a good quality perfomance tire. I have stated before and will state again that if you have a $10 head, the buy $10 tires. It is your lifeline to the ground especially when you are driving fast

Torn picture of my Ghia- Only one I have here. But believe me when I say the Pirelli's were a great 15" tire, this car hauled *** and cornered. I just out grew it at 6'4"

 

I was never trying to claim that they weren't a good tire. You were the one who mentioned track results of wet and dry braking distance, traction and lap times, yet you still have not given us any data to back it up besides telling us that it is a soft tire and that it is expensive.

He never said it specifically had to be a 235/60R15. He just asked what would be a great street tire on a 15" wheel. Furthermore, he said it would be used on a daily driver, so a 180 treadwear rating means that it's probably going to wear out very quickly. At $141 per tire, I don't see the point in buying these tires to put on a daily driver and need to be replaced with only 10,000 miles on them.

In any case, I'm not trying to disagree with you on whether or not the Pirellis are the "best" tire or not for 15" wheels. I just think that in the original poster's application, the Pirellis are not the best choice.

Have a good day.

 

I will agree with you on those points. Unfortunately tirerack does not waste their time comparing lower grade tires when it comes to performance surveys. The catagory is obsolete due to the general market wanting the "looks" of a larger wheel so the smaller wheel 15" tires has diappeared in quality and are 99% budget based. HOWEVER, there are still a few great examples of a tue peformance 15" tire and the Pirelli p600 is one of them with nothing else for tirerack to waste time comparing it to.

When it comes to upscale vehicles with nostalgic value, a consumer of such will spend the money on a tire so fit for their application on a car that is geometrically and visually engineered for a certain size tire- the Jag XJS is such a car so Pirelli has a market to justify still making an upscale tire for that demand of application.

There are two schools of thought when buying tires-

1) the best tire for my budget

and
2) The best tire for my car's peformance and safety regardless of money.

Your opinion is #1, Mine is #2. Nothing wrong with that, its called opinions and its up to a person to decide what is best for them and how they choose to use it.

 

this has been a good education. thanks for your posts guys.