hi everyone, need new tires,thinking of going to 255-45-18.has anyone made this change? im doing it to improve the visual stance of my o7 gt.if you made the change,how does your car look and what brand of tires did you buy?thanks

 

Quite a few people have made the "plus 0" switch to the 255/45-18. A search of the forums here should turn up a few posts and pics about the switch. That's the size I'll be going with on my 18" stock wheels, hopefully later this year. I'll be going with the Continental DW (not the DWS).

 

Slight visual improvement over the 235/50R18 with a slight gain in lateral road holding if its an apples to apples comparison.

I swapped the 235/50R18's on my folks 07 GT for the 255/45R18 Michelin Pilot Sport A/S+, ride definetely improved and the 45k mileage warranty is a plus (provided they rotate the tires) again there was a slight improvement in lateral acceleration.

On my old 07 GT I swapped the 235/50R18 KDWSs for 255/45R18 KDWs and there was a substantial gain in both road holding and lateral acceleration by dint of going from an all-season to a summer tire.

 

I did it right after getting my '07. Went to the KDW-IIs (flame pattern tread) a week after I took delivery in July of '06. Been driving on them ever since. I honestly don't even remember what the 235's were like, I put maybe 200 miles on them.

I like the extra width, although I don't know about the KDW's, they've always felt a little slippery here in Las Vegas. Don't know what I'll go with next though, seems I'm always replacing 1 tire at a time, not all 4.

Damned nails!

 

I also did this quite recently. I switched to 245/45 R18's on the fronts and 255/45 R18's on the rears. I went with the Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetrics.

I love the stance of the car with these tires and they also give me far superior traction from launch than I ever got from the stock BFG KDWS tires.

Here are a couple of pictures for you, front and rear...











Sorry for the picture whoring...

Andy

 

great looking car.why did you go with 245s in the front rather than 255s front and rear?

 

Thank you. I went with this set up just to give it the slight staggered look, better turn in and (hopefully) less tramlining...

 

I actually had 265's out back for a while but now back down to a 245/45 nitto nt05. LOVE the nt05!

 

What's tramlining? Never heard that before.

 

How much did you pay for the nt05"s and whom did you buy them from? Great looking tire and great performace so I've heard.

 

I did this and love it! I've now got GT500 wheels with Nitto Nt555 255/45/18's and the car seems to like it a lot better. Real agressive look and much better handling. My car is lowered, so I think it rubs on extreme turns, but nothing bad so far!

Got the Nittos from American muscle for under $800 shipped!!

 

That's the size I am going to when I wear down the factory tires. I have 18.5 " wide wheels so they should be a nice fit.

 

Tramlining is when you are travelling in a straight line but the front wheels want to follow any line faults in the road. It feels like the front wheels are set in ruts and are following those, rather than the straight ahead. The wider your front tires are the more pronounced it gets.

 

I went with 255x45x18's when I upgraded to 18" wheels on my 06 GT. Better handling and appearance than with the 255x50x17's I had on the stock wheels. I went with the Kumho ASX all season tire. I am very pleased with them. I am in a little car club with other retired guys, most of which have Corvettes. We cruise once a month. Once we got caught in a rain and I was leading. I had to slow down for the vettes.

 

A nice feature with the GT500 wheels is its 18 x 9.5 size. Thats about the upper limit for rim width on a 255/45R18 and as such the tire tends to react quicker and have a more stable sidewall.

And thats something thats always bugged me on the 07-09 cars, a 255/45R18 on a 18 x 9.5 is about as wide as you want to take the rim and a 285/40R18 on a 18 x 9.5 is about the narrowest rim you want to fit that tire to. In effect the front and rear tires have two different personalities when it comes to handling. The front is sports car quick while the rear is luxury car slow (to put things simply). This becomes even more muddled if you subscribe to; contact patch = weight x infaltion pressure.

Probably just need to get a set of rack limiters (which IIRC are different on the GT500 and GT)

 

[QUOTE=bob;6073997]A nice feature with the GT500 wheels is its 18 x 9.5 size. Thats about the upper limit for rim width on a 255/45R18 and as such the tire tends to react quicker and have a more stable sidewall.

And thats something thats always bugged me on the 07-09 cars, a 255/45R18 on a 18 x 9.5 is about as wide as you want to take the rim and a 285/40R18 on a 18 x 9.5 is about the narrowest rim you want to fit that tire to. In effect the front and rear tires have two different personalities when it comes to handling. The front is sports car quick while the rear is luxury car slow (to put things simply). This becomes even more muddled if you subscribe to; contact patch = weight x infaltion pressure. [QUOTE]

I went with 275/40R18 all around on my GT500 takeoff wheels. I believe that's about as wide as you can go on the front. I don't have any issues with rubbing but my car isn't lowered (yet.) It does tramline a bit (especially in the 40-50 mph range - could just be the local roads, it is better at 65 mph on the highway) but the front end grip is amazing and the ability to rotate the tires is a huge plus.

 

That car looks amazing, are you running spacers to clear the Roush brakes?

 

Sorry about not replying. I payed 312 for both of the nt05's shipped to my front door. Given they were 245/40/18's but still. Best tire I've ever driven a car with so far that is not an R compound tire. Great corner traction, superb wet traction and excellent dry.

 

The site was discounttiredirect btw

 

Thank you. Yes, 1" hub centric spacers. It's the only way you can keep the stock 18's with big brakes. I also have them on the rear to keep everything balanced.