I am looking at replacing my front tyres with the standard OEM. My tyre dealer said I should put the same size tyre as the rear OEM and then I could swap them over (front and back) and get an even tread wear/tyres lasting longer.

Does anyone know if there is a problem with doing this? Does it affect the handling? Why did Honda put different sizes on in the first place?

Sorry if these are dumb question.

 

Do not listen to your tire guy. He does not know about the S2000.

The reason Honda put different size tires in the back and front is because the rear wheel is one inch wider than the front wheel. 16x7.5" vs 16x6.5" I think. The rear wheels are wider because the S2000 is a rear wheel drive car.

If you get the OEM tires, stay with the same sizes: 205 on front and 225 on back. If you get some other tires, stay with 205 on front but switch to 245 on the back because the OEM 225 that are on the back wheels are in reality close to 245.

I am by no means an expert on tires/wheels but I believe I am correct here.

 

Thanks for your help

 

I'm thinking about buying four front OEM wheels and putting 205/55-16 snow tires on them for winter. I will not be pushing the car when they are on.

Will the car handle normally when not driving above 5 tenths?

Does anyone have pictures of the front wheel at the back position? I'd like to know how the smaller rim looks.

P.S. My goal is to be able to rotate the winter tires.

 

I, too, know little about the reason Honda put different size tires on the back relative to the fronts, but my best guess is that it was to limit oversteer (i.e., the back end coming around at the limits of adhesion) and not simply because it's a rear wheel drive car. I would suspect that if one had no intention of driving at the limits of the car using the same size tires all around would have little effect, but keep in mind that that would also limit adhesion while "jack rabbiting" as well as in turning

I'm no tire or suspension engineer, but I've debated selecting narrower size snow tires front and rear to get me through the rougher wintry conditions up here. Like many longtime snow belt drivers I have this feeling that I'd do better in the deeper stuff if I could find bicycle tires that would fit and, like Destiny2000, I would not be driving at the limits of my car (in the winter, anyway). Maybe Xviper or some of the other winter drivers could add their $.02 to this question.

 

Don't forget that the rear wheel won' t even fit on the front.

 

RWD cars with near 50/50 wt distribution AND having high performance capabilties had the habit of getting a bit unstable at high speed. The first example I can think of were the mid '80s Vettes. They began to "wander" all over the place at speed. Then they changed the suspension and settings and the wheel/tire sizes such that the rears were a couple of inches wider than the front. The "instability" was cured. Besides this trait, a sports car generally look nicer and more aggressive ("sporty") with a staggered tire size. A smaller size of rear tire on the S will not fill the wheel well too good and might look "odd". But then again, seeing an S2000 driving around in a blizzard looks odd already so who really cares. (I should know.)