[zogthegreat]

Hi everyone!

I have a 2011 Taurus SEL with 18" rims and I have been shopping for winter tires, (required by law no later than 5 November where I live). I've been thinking about getting steel rims for my winter tires to save money having my tires remounted and balanced twice a year and I have noticed places offering 16" steel rims, claiming that they will fit a 2011 Taurus.

Is it safe to put 16" rims on a 2011 Taurus? I can see 17" not being a problem, but 16" seems a bit small to me. However, 16" snow tires are considerably less expensive that 18", so if I can safely install this size, it would be great.

Also, if these tires will fit, how much will it affect my speedometer? On my 2005 Windstar had 16" tire's, but I had 15" for winter tires. This caused my speedometer to be off by about 10 km/h - 6 mph. However, I seem to remember that the summer tires were 22/60R16 whereas the winter tires were 205/60R15 so possibly this was the cause for the inaccurate spedo.

Thanks for any help!

zog

(EDIT) I just found this searching through the site:

Tire Size Calculators

Here are some tire size calculators and speedometer error calculators. Beware that the actual tire size may be different than what is outputted by these calculators. http://ejelta.com/tiresize/index.html?ws14...&maxdelta=5 http://www.paspeedo.com/calculator.htm...

www.taurusclub.com

I followed the links to here:

225/55-R18 vs 225/55-R16 Tire Comparison - Tire Size Calculator | Tacoma World

225/55-R16 tires are 2 inches (50.8 mm) smaller in diameter than 225/55-R18 tires and the speedometer difference is 7.2%

www.tacomaworld.com

It seems that with 16" rims, my speedo will be off by about 7 km/h - 5 mph.