steel wheels & snow tires

[lydia413]

a couple of questions, after reading through numerous earlier threads:

here's my theory so far:
- 165/65R14 blizzaks (i wanted to get hakka 2's, but i'm told the last set in the US just sold)
- get steel rims for the snows, use the alloys for summer

when i search for used rims for an '01 insight, e.g. at car-part.com or automotix.net, i come up with rims that were made for an integra. i find in an earlier thread here viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4902&hilit=acura+rims an assertion that those would indeed be fine, but also someone else saying they wouldn't fit under the rear wheel covers.

- how do i tell whether the wheel-cover constraint applies to me?
- is there any such thing as an integra 14x5.5 4x100 wheel that wouldn't work for my '01 insight?
- what's the "100" in 4x100?

thanks for any help.

[Kevin Dougherty]

Originally Posted by lydia413

- how do i tell whether the wheel-cover constraint applies to me?
- is there any such thing as an integra 14x5.5 4x100 wheel that wouldn't work for my '01 insight?
- what's the "100" in 4x100?

thanks for any help.

The constraint shouldn't apply.The Insight uses 14x5.5 rims. http://www.insightcentral.net/encyclopedia/enspecs.html
The offset may be an issue if you use super wide tires... not usual with snows
The 100 is 100 mm. (diagonal I think) between the 4 studs

[Dougie]

One thing to realize is that skinny snow tires work better than wide ones. Regardless of what people seem to think, the 165 width tires on the Insight aren't particularly skinny in comparison to other small cars. A 135 tire would not even be too extreme if you could find one. Another factor is that if you go to 13" wheels, everything gets cheaper. You can get steel wheels from pretty much any 1990-era Civic that will fit just fine, and while the range of 13" tires is pretty limited, you only need to find one set.

These considerations are what led me to my current 13" setup with 155/85-13 Blizzak tires, the whole deal only cost $250 including mounting, balancing, and silver spray paint...

[lydia413]

Originally Posted by Dougie

One thing to realize is that skinny snow tires work better than wide ones.

i'm actually now committed to the path of the 14" tires, but just wondering...
"work better" how? better traction in snow? fitting better in the wheelwell?

[Dougie]

Skinny tires work better in most snow conditions because they tend to cut into the snow rather than float on top of it. The difference is fairly small but noticeable in extreme conditions. Excessively wide tires is one of the reasons that big 4WD SUVs do so poorly in snowy conditions even though they have all of those fancy traction control systems.

If you get narrow tires on small wheels, you have to choose the size so that they fit into the tire wells just like the stock tires and are the right size to make the speedometer read right. To see if a tire will fit correctly, you need to figure out its diameter. The outer diameter of the tire depends on the wheel diameter (13" or 14" or whatever) and a combination of the width and the aspect ratio. Basically you have two choices to find out the approximate tire diameter. One method is to go to www.miata.net and look in the garage section for the tire size tool. The other method is to calculate it yourself using the cross sectional width (155mm for a 155-85/13 tire) and the aspect ratio (0.85). There is probably a clear explanation of how this works on www.tirerack.com; it's a bit confusing...

[mtgeekman]

I put some OEM sized(165 65R14) Blizzaks on a few weeks ago. Havn't had any issues with them. They will hum when you get to about 40mph and get louder as your speed increases.

In the last few days we got a nice dumping of snow, 4-6 inches of fresh snow on the roads. I am extremely impressed with how the car feels on these tires. This is with ice under the snow as the temps were still dropping when it started snowing.

[gslord]

After being involved in an accident last week with my Insight on a snow and ice covered road, I decided to bite the bullet and get the Blizzaks snow tires. Could not find an alloy wheel at a reasonable price, so I purchased 4 steel wheels for an Accura Integra (94-9 along with the snow tires (165/65-14) from Tire Rack. Called on Saturday and received the tires yesterday afternoon (Monday) and put the tires on yesterday evening. Everything fit perfectly, even the lug-nuts that Tire Rack supplied which are different than the lugs for the alloy wheels. Total price for 4 wheels, tires mounted and balance, delivery and all taxes well under $500. Had some snow this morning and what a difference snow tires make in control of my Insight, but it is costing me about 5 MPG on my first commute which is close to 80 miles daily. Small price to pay for much better traction.