So I know there have been posts about going with 17" tires and the size needed to not mess with the speedo. But what if I want to keep the tires with the same amount of "tire" so to speak as 16s. Basically I don't want to affect my ride comfort or tread depth - I would just re-program the PCM to adjust the speedo.

This being said, what size for 17" in tires would I want to get?

I have 235/55/17 with no rubbing issues at all. My speedo shows 58.7mph when I am going 60 as per an internet calculator, so I am 2% off. If you went with 225/55/17 you would be .4% off so you would show 59.7mph when actually going 60. This is as close as you can come. As for my ride, I could not tell the difference. If you kept the 225/60 and went with 17s, you would gain almost an inch in diameter, and would most likely rub badly. Some say go with 245/50 but your ride would suffer some and those 245 would not navigate WI snow very well.
http://www.1010tires.com/TireSizeCalculator.asp?action=submit

I have dedicated snow tires and now I am buying summer tires. The rims I am thinking of buying only come in 17" so that is why I asked the question. My snow tires are on my stock rims so I never had to look into it before.

235/55/17 sounds like the way to go though, thanks.

EDIT* I just checked on tire rack and the tires I am looking at only come in 235/50/17 . . . could someone break down what each of the numbers means so I actually understand what is changing from size to size?

When I actually clicked on the 17" size for '02 GP GTP on tire rack they recommend 225/55-17 . . will those work?

does this help?

broken link mood man.

okay lanky, i have broken it down before in previous threads, you also would have found the same answers there. anyways, moving on.

tire sizes come in xxx/yy/zz

xxx is the width of the tire in millimeters.
yy is the height of the sidewall in a percentage of the width of the tire. so, for example, if you have an xxx of 225, and your yy is 50, that means your sidewall height is 50% of 225 mm.
zz is the size of rim the tire is designed for, 15", 16", 17" etc.

The yy is what most ppl get confused about. This is what you need to look at most importantly because you need the right aspect ratio to keep your outside diameter of the tire as close to stock as possible, unless you want it bigger for some reason.

now, I might as well explain offset to you as well. Offset (which on 97-03 GP's are between +38 - +45) is how far the mounting face of the rim is infront or behind the centreline of the rim. Now offset is important because of clearance reasons. The higher the offset the closer the rim is to the rotors. Too high an offset and there isn't going to be enough clearance for the rim and tire to roll freely without rubbing anything. Too low an offset and the rim and tire are going to stick out and possibly rub on the fender.

Tirerack is going to recommend stock tire width which is why they recommend 225. For summer tires, you don't want stock, stock is ewwy. You want 235's or 245's (i'd say go with 245, but thats just my opinion). Now i'm still not sure if you want the same sidewall height as stock or not because you settled on 235/55 which has a diff sidewall height. STOCK sidewall height is 135 mm (yy% of xxx, 60% of 225 mm). The sidewall height on the 235/55 is 129 mm. Now yes, it's only 6 mm, but its really 12 mm because you have to add it to the top and bottom, so it is quite substantial. Now if you want the SAME SIDEWALL HEIGHT AS STOCK you have to go with a 245/55/17 tire. These both have 135 mm sidewalls. I'd say go with 245. To sum it up, 245/55/17 will give you same sidewall height but will make the O.D of the tire quite a bit larger so you will need to fix ur speedo accordingly. OR you can go with 245/50/17 and not have to fix anything, it will be the exact size as stock pretty much, 0.1% difference.

never seen that before. thats pretty cool

am I the only one that sees a broken link? n/m, firewall blocks it.

Alrighty, that makes a lot more sense now - thank you for breaking that down for me. (I did do a search and looked through a lot of threads and did not find that info, sorry) At any rate - what would be some good tires to get at one of those sizes without spending a fortune? When I select those sizes on tire rack I barely have any tires to choose from and they are either terrible tires or extremely expensive.

go on ebay and look at Nexen N3000's. I got them, love them, and they're sexxi
245 17's are hard to find. How wide is your rim? If its 8" you could even go 255. Here are 4 Nankangs 255/45/17 for 252$
4 Goodyear Eagle\'s 235/55/17
Never heard of these before but they look alright, Runway Enduros 245/45/17 for 240$
Any my fav\'s, 2 Nexen n3000\'s 245/45/17 for 137$

I think what moodman and R.S. posted is FAQ material!!!

The 4 Nankangs I listed is what I would recommend you go with IF the rims you are looking at are 8" wide.

If 17x6.5" means that they are only 6.5" wide then those would not work for me. Here are the rims I like the best so far:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/17-Pontia...5789QQtcZphot o

And also . . if I understood what you said earlier . . then the smaller the sidewall is the more bumpy the ride would be. So going with those Nexen 3000's a is a big size decrease on the sidewall from stock right? How much of a difference will that make?

How about these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1-P-Zero-...p3756.m20.l1116

Those are $100 below what they are on every other site and those are a nice size - almost no decrease on sidewall size. I just want to confirm that those will fit fine without rubbing, and my PCM will have to be adjusted then too right?