Changing wheel/tire size

gxb159 · November 20, 2006

I want to change my 04 Silverado from 17" wheels to 16" wheels because there is a bigger selection of tires and I could have a meaty set to put on during winter and for camp and keep a highway set for the rest of the year (I drive 2500 miles a month). Will changing wheel size throw off my speedometer and odometer? What size tires should I use to minimize this?

juliedean · November 20, 2006

I want to change my 04 Silverado from 17" wheels to 16" wheels because there is a bigger selection of tires and I could have a meaty set to put on during winter and for camp and keep a highway set for the rest of the year (I drive 2500 miles a month). Will changing wheel size throw off my speedometer and odometer? What size tires should I use to minimize this?

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The first and biggest concern is actually whether you have nough room inside the wheel; i.e., clearance from the braking system parts and suspension and/or steering linkages, etc.

If such clearance is not an issue on your truck, you should be fine unless you put on radically difference size tires. A little change is not going to affect your spedometer and odometer significantly. In some cases, there might not be any difference because the overall tire diameter(i.e., height) stays the same. In some cases, you will find that when you switch from 265/70R17 to 265/75R16, the overall diameter stays the same, so your revs per mile will stay the same, and your spedometer readout will not be thrown off.

Some online tire stores have pretty neat charts listing many tire measurements.

We have used The Tire Rack at http://www.tirerack.com/ for this very purpose before finalizing a tire size change on our car. In most of their tire listings there's a "specs" menu. There you'll find info on max load values, tire weight, rim width range, section width, tread width, overall diameter, and revolutions per mile.