Both 205/50 and 225/45 will fit 20VT standard 16" wheels. What differences to handling/feel are there between the two choices?

Apparently the 225s break away more suddenly at the limit due the their different contact-patch size. I haven't run them personally however.

sorry to be a dimwit here but what exactly do you mean break away,i,m just wondering because i have 225x45,s
but have no experience of 205x50,s in a nutshell what would you recomend, pro,s & con,s ....sorry to nick thread

he means when you are on the limit you went start losing grip, you will just lose it suddenly and slide across the road.

i dont know to what severity though TBH, i run 215/40/17 on my marea and still find alot of squeel before understeer/sideways but it is slightly less warning than the 205's

umm isnt the the contact patch the same size but a different shape? 205s are supposed to give you a squarer contact area to the 225s more rectangular shape. So in theory 225 should be better for cornering not worst?

I swapped from 225 to 205 and notice little difference to be honest but I dont drive that hard maybe on a track the differences would be more noticable....225 are quite abit more and theres less choice too.

contact patch is exactly the same size no matter what size tyre you choose. its a common mis understanding that wider tyres = more grip, when it really isnt the case!! having wider tyres give some benefits though:
tyres wear slower and therefore you can run softer rubber compounds for longer,
you can run slightly lower tyre pressures which then would mean larger contact patch and more grip.
tyres not so easily overloaded
and so on

i think it might be a case of you think its giving you better grip when you put 225s on but its more because youve just replaced old rubber with new!!

no it doesn't....

yes, you get a larger contact patch, but the weight of the car is the same. This means the weight is spread over a larger area, which means, the force per square mm is reduced - the amount of grip is exactly the same, but the characteristics wil be altered.

To answer the original question, there is a small difference between 205 and 225 handling-wise, but you'd be hard pushed to notice on the road.

Of MUCH greater importance is the compound of the rubber - a good tyre will always outperform a budget tyre (grip-wise, at least)

Choose your tyre make first, then worry about size. If 205s are cheaper than 225s, then the 205 is the best tyre.

.

this page at the bottom perhaps?

like I said i noticed very little difference between 225 and 205s and anything i did could be down to the completely differnt tyres (pirelli vs Goodyear Eagles)

wow there,s a lot to digest in that article, very interesting read, ive learned a lot thankyou very much indeed

This is well worth a read. Why are things are always more complicated than they first appear?

Blimey, that lot has taken while to read. Many thanks to all contributors - I've just learnt how much I don't know!


....so which one is better then?

I always found the coupe had a 'sharper' turn in on 205s and felt more responsive in corners. The 225s always felt like they give more grip and traction (comparing same model of tyre) so they are what I run.

The car bibles page doesn't take into account the roundness of the tyre. The front and rear of the contact patch are lifted from the road slightly because of it. You can work out whet you want from that however..

I would say this it results in uneven pressure from the tyre onto the road with the center supporting the most weight and the front and rear of the patch supporting less. This effect will be reduced with wider tyres due to the patch being shorter but wider.. However the contact patch area will be the same.

I would go for the wider tyres, they look slightly better, even if you will get more tramlining, and worse aerodynamics.