SPD Tuning Service

Page down for detailed information. Suggestions, comments and questions are always welcome.

We cannot stress the importance of tires in the driving experience. I live in Southern California and could probably drive on racing slicks, but we go over 4000 feet to get out of LA in any direction east or north, so we sometimes need snow tires too. If the budget allows, good high performance tires with a good set of snow tires is the way to go. We also discuss all weather M+S tires.

The recommended tire sizes for the performance minded driver are 205/55-15, 205/50-16 and 215/40-17. 18" tires are not really practicle on the car, and wider tires get you into fender clearance problems very fast. I once saw an Impreza that had 235/35-18 tires. It had the front inner fender removed, the foot well area had been beat in with a hammer,   the rear fender lip was beat up and in and the tires showed signs of touching up in the inner fender area.. Not my cup of tea. Just install our excellent suspension, use excellent tires of the proper size and you will have a great handling car, as many customers will gladly tell you. Remember that the WRC rally cars are limites to a 210mm tire. They go just fine.

The "official" tire for SPD Tuning Service is the Toyo Proxes series. There are two reasons. The first is that the Toyo Proxes T1 is one of the top four or five performance tires available. Second, Toyo has made these tires available to SPD Tuning Service at a competitive price that we can pass along to you. Otherwise, we would be recommending them, but not selling them. And they ARE really good or we would not be selling them! For those of you who do not know, http://www.tirerack.com is probably the best place to purchase tires, unless you have a local service station you prefer.

These sections are a general discussion based on conversations and personal experience. Anyone wanting to contribute to this section on tires they have driven should contact us. We ask that you prepare a "comparison" report of two or three tires of the same expected performance that you have had experience with. We will gladly edit you comments into the articles.

Send mail to mshields@spdusa.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: May 23, 2000