sac2006TL

iTrader: (1)

This may be a dumb question... But the TL guys do it all the time. In fact, I did it when I had my TL. Went from the factory 245/45/17 to a 255/40/17 on the stock rim...

Anyways, that is besides the point.

I know this car is an SUV (and it's my first), but the amount of wheel well showing is huge (again, I know it's supposed to be that way, as this is an SUV).

BUT, I thought I would ask if anyone has put (or considered putting) a slightly larger tire on the stock rim to fill out the wheel well just ever so slightly better? If so, what size did you run?

TapOut

You can go on TireRack and it'll give you "Other Sized" tire options for your factory wheels. I'm not sure you would want to increase the overall diameter too much though. One problem is that you're going to start throwing off the speedo, and the second problem is you'll start getting worse handling with all that extra mushy sidewall. This is one of the reasons I'm upgrading to a 19" or 20" wheel, so I can fill out the wheel gap a little, but mostly to get rid of all the extra play in the tall sidewalls.

Puppetmaster

The tolerance level in terms of the odometer and speedometer differences is going to be very small, ie. it doesn't take much of an increase in size to throw everything off, but there may be a few options.

Play around with one of these calculators and you should find an alternative size that might work:

http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/infoTireMath.dos

http://www.1010tires.com/tiresizecalculator.asp

musty hustla

What about wider?

TiggaMan909

I don't think wider will hurt so long as the rim width can handle the dimensions. I'm not sure what the factory specs are on the MDX wheel, but on my TL which has factory specs of 235/45/17, I went with 245/45/17 without issue.

Aesthetically, it looks great! The footprint is wider which gives you more contact with the ground for improved dry traction and it wont throw off the speedometer. But for those of you that live in a snowy region, you might want rethink this as it will hurt you when it comes to driving in the snow.