It was time to bite the bullet and get new skins on my 2000 SSEi.

I replaced the Toyo 225/50/17'* I had on my ride with Toyo Tourevo LS 245/50T/17 and used the stock rims (couldn't find any rims that really tripped me).

The ride is great! Road noise is greatly reduced. The car corners like a Cheetah after lunch and they don't bark as much when the evil right foot get'* a playing.

The tires do not rub when going over rough roads or speed bumps and when steering from lock to lock (L to R).

All four tires, new valve stems, balancing, mounting, etc was about $1200 at Les Schwab.

Time to go break them in......

Ouch. Last year I bought 4 new tires and wheels. Hope I don't have to that again any time soon. Those 245s will give you a lot more traction, but it'* still not enough. My next set will be 255

I looked at the 255/50/17'* and I'm pretty sure those would have not made it out of the parking lot without ripping the sidewall up. They are about .5" in diameter wider, .25" higher in the sidewall, .5" greater diameter, and 1.3" greater in circumference.

To make certain I had the clearance to gain the extra 1/2" tread width, I would have had to drop to a 255/45/17 and I didn't want to give up the sidewall/strength and cornering performance that I get with the 50'*.

I'm running 245/45/17, the ride is great. You could have easily run 255/45/17 and the sidewall woudl have been very close to what you have now.

are 245s wider then the 235 stocks?

I want some thicker tires in the back too make it look more agressive, should i upgrade to 245'* then?

I'll keep that in mind Dan. I sure do like these tires though....after that M90, 1.9'*, 3.1MPS, Stage 1 Cam and tune....I'm probably not though.

Which reminds me...when are you and Bill coming over and helping with the transformation?

The 245'* are wider than the 235'*. Not sure why you want to go bigger in the rear when you have front wheel drive? If all your tires are the same size, you don't have issues when you rotate them every 5K or so.

i would prolly do the same to the front, just wondered if 245'* were actually noticeably wider.

1 cm or 10 mm ... so prolly not really noticable but would look and perform alot better

245 - overall tread width in mm
50 - sidewall hieght, determined by % of width'* size, ie 50% of 245 mm
17 - rim size