Smaller Tires on 2021 CX-5 Sport?
- Thread starter RonK
- Start date
Mazdahawk72
2021 CX-5 Grand Touring with GT Premium Package
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- Wisconsin
Safely, sure. Your speedometer will read over 2% faster, however. 235 60 R17 might be a better choice. Look online for tire size calculator to help chose a different size than stock.
Thanks for the reply. These are tires that are only one season old and I quickly had them swapped out before I traded in the old car. Now that I have the CX5 I noticed they were the same size rim and not that far off on the aspect. I figure the difference is a little over 1.5 inch less in the entire wheel/tire diameter than with the 225 65 R17 that the Mazda has. I do this with all my car purchases where I trade in the old car that has really good tread on it. Why should I give the dealer an easy feature to help him sell my old car?
The width of the tire is identical to the other tires. Both are 225mm. They both fit 17-inch wheels. It's the sidewalls that are in question here. They would be roughly a difference of .88 inches on both sides of the tire, which makes about an inch and a half total smaller tire set. They'd only be used for winter. And they're pretty mild for me.
N7turbo
2023 CX-5 2.5T
That's actually not the width of the tire. What I'm referring to is called the "section width" and it is affected by the tread width and aspect ratio, and varies by tire construction as well. This is one of the things you look at to determine if a tire will work on your wheels, as well as the diameter.
A 225/55 has a section width of about 9" when mounted on a 7" wheel and a suggested rim width range of 6-8". However for tighter handling, opt for a tire that is on the upper end of the rim width range rather than in the middle. This is one of the reasons I believe the 225/55 Toyo A36 that comes on these cars feels so squishy; it's a 9" tire on a 7" (bead width) wheel.
Click "Specs":
Section width increases with wheel width; the 245/45 I'm installing will have a section width of about 10" on a 9" wheel (9" at the tire mounting beads, 10" actual width face to face), which should be perfect:
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- Pueblo county CO
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- CX-5 Sport 16.5 6M
Are you going to put them on some different rims, so you can swap them out?
No the tires would both use the same Mazda CX-5 standard rims 17 inch and not sure what their set back is. But the point is, the tire measurement from top of tread to road is only 1 1/2 inches smaller than what it is with the 65 R17s. The 225 is the width of the tread and they're both the same.
Section width is the tire "bulge" which is the most varied dimension as it can change with the seasons due to varied air pumped into the tire and outside air temperature. I was clearly talking about tread width. I'm not worried about section width. And 225 is the tread width.
N7turbo
2023 CX-5 2.5T
Section Width
You asked if you can safely use these tires on your Mazda 17" wheels. Whether or not they can be safely used is dependent upon the tire being the right width for the wheel.
That's the reason for my post. I was only answering your question.
N7turbo
2023 CX-5 2.5T
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The loss in speedo readouts by 10% was already mentioned. That was not the question. Let's just move on.
A general rule is the diameter should be within 3% of the OEM tires. Going from a 225x65 (OEM) to 225x55 on the same size of rim would be 6.6%. See the calculator here Tire Size Calculator: What Size Tires Should You Get?. IMO I wouldn’t do what you are planning.
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From Les Schwab: "Our tire size calculator is for general comparison purposes only. We don’t recommend that you base sizing or purchase decisions on the calculator alone. A tire’s true physical size can vary from the dimensions provided by the tire manufacturer, and this tool does not take into account other important application factors like load index and speed rating. These calculations (and those provided by all online tire dimension calculators) don’t account for these variations." I'm good.
