I know it's early, but I 'm planning to purchase 4 winter tires on steel wheels (with wheel covers) for my SXT. I would like to replace the 17" wheels with 15". Would going from the 215/60/17 to the 205/70/15 be OK? I'm looking at the Michelin X-Ice tires. The specialists at Tirerack.com say that it is too early for them to give a definite answer.

 

why would you want to get smaller wheels and tires? why dont you get the same size tires put on the same wheels?

 

Realize that when you put smaller wheels on it, you're gonna severely kill your speedometer as well as odometer. I would get 17" winter tires. One nice thing for me is that the Caliber SXT uses pretty much the same wheel size as my Stratus R/T, only difference is that Stratus is 50 series, and the Caliber is 60 series, so not much difference there. I have Dunlop Winter X tires for my Stratus and they do really well, especially considering my Stratus flat out blows in the winter.

I would really look for 17" rims, or just use the wheels that came on it and NOT use 15" rims.

I will say that my dad has Goodyear Assurance TripleTred tires on his Sebring (16" Wheels) and they do extremely well in all climates, even icy and heavy snow conditions. We live up on a fairly large dirt hill and he's rarely had the tires spin while going up the hill in any kind of conditions. In case you're wondering, yes, they do make them in the size of the Caliber SXT wheels, and is probably the best tire you can get for the Caliber right now. I'm seriously looking at getting them for mine when I purchase my Caliber. Then I can use them all year in any climate and not have to worry about changing tires all the time.

 

What happens if you don't buy the tire pressure sensor for the snow tires on differant rims and the vehicle is equiped with the vehicle info center with tire pressure read out? What kind of alarm do you get and is it constant? Any info would help.

 

nothing its just been ON and been screwing u its happened to me

 

15" tire will fit perfectly fine. The tire size you want is 205/75R15. I got a set of Nordic Wintertracs for my Caliber. This will keep your odometer and speedometer with 0.19%. This will be less than noticable. Go to http://www.dakota-truck.net/TIRECALC/tirecalc.html. The stock tires are 215/60R17. This site will tell you exactly what your odometer will read.

Also to aanswer the questions about why use a smaller tire. There are many things to factor in. The first is that a 15" tire is a lot cheaper than a 17" tire. And the 215/60R17 is not a common tire size. Many people have noted that there are not many choices in that size.

As for the TPMS sensors, it has been noted that they do not function properly in steel rims. You would also bee looking at getting a whole new set of 4, I was last quoted $60 CAN each for them. From what others have posted you will just get bugged at start up that it can't find the sensors.

I hope this helps.

 

I was checking this out for my SXT and found that a P215/70 R15 has an outside diameter of 26.9 inches. The stock P215/60 R17 tires are 27 inches. I don't think that’s enough to make much difference. These numbers are for Michelin x-ice snow tire from Michelins website.

 

0.1 isn't too far off. If you plug those numbers into the site I mentioned above that will tell you your exact speedometer error.