ufnavy06

It's that time... for the first time. I need tires. Currently running the KDWS on 235/50ZR18. Found them on tiresdirect.com I believe for under $100 with road hazard. Keep on hearing they're the best tires to get. Thoughts, or other suggestions.

mot250

Tire rack has similar (if not cheaper, but I don't recall if it included road hazard). Must be due to the fact that is it the OEM tire, Ford buys a ton of them and a lot of people just replace with the stock tire.

I'd say KDWS are the least expensive tire for our cars (18's) and they are not the worst tire but there are better tires out there for a price... It also depends on how you intend to drive the car. Do you need to drive it in the snow? Then you need to stick with an all season tire like the KDWS ("S" is for snow).

Tire Rack has some pretty good articles comparing different tires for wet, dry and some for snow as well.

Also, if you drill into Tire Rack's listing of specs, you'd see that for an 18 X 8.5 inch wheel, most manufactures would recommend a slightly wider tire (245/45 or 255/45) for that wheel size than what Ford installed. Maybe Ford was hoping for selling lots of replacement wheels due to curb rash as the stock tires lack of appreciable side bulge leaves only the smallest margin of error before there is damage to the wheel.

Personally, I don't need my tires for driving in the snow. I have 33 inch BFG AT's on my pick-up for snow driving. I picked up a set of 18 X 9.5 inch Steeda Pentars and covered them in Nitto 555s at 275/40/18s for my Mustang. I also considered GoodYear F1 GS/D3s, F1 Supercar and BFG KDW (not "S"). I went with the Nittos due to a combination of availability, price, convenience (delivered mounted and balanced) and recommendations from some guys I know.

ufnavy06

I've heard the Nittos are pretty good. And no I hope I'm not getting snow here in Charleston anytime soon. Give it about 2 months and it'll be fairly nice again. My problem is I'm going to be moving soon (when and where is a good question) so I don't want to buy summer tires only to have to take them off this coming winter because I live somewhere where snow is an issue. So you're suggesting at least a 245/45 or 255/45 for the car? I have the 18" polished chrome rims and I just want to make sure I don't screw myself on buying the wrong tire (size or purpose). If I can stay in the south, summer tires all the way.

Oh and I know what you mean about the rims.... I scraped mine up a few months back and it ****ed me off.

mot250

Those sizes will work for an 8.5 inch wide rim like our stock 18's and they will put you in the right ball-park for overall diameter (about 27 inches) and revs per mile (about 760). Tire Rack is good at providing the specs of all of a particular tire model so you can see all of these details. By looking at the specs for the BFG KDWS, I found that the 235/50-18 is ok for a max wheel width of 8.5, which is why it provides so little side bulge. Not all of my suggested sizes are available in the KDWS. Had I not up'd the ante to the Steeda rims (9.5 inches wide) I was going to get a tire in the 255/45-18 range.

Forgive my ignorance. Does the Superchips tune have a feature that allows you to adjust for tire size? If it does, your options grow...

ufnavy06

No worries. So the rim is 8.5" wide? The guy I got off the phone with at tire rack said as long as its at least 8" I can go with the 255. I'm looking and I don't see any where that's going to give me as good of a deal on that tire (KDW2s). And I do believe the superchips tune does give me that option to account for tire changes. I don't know how much that opens things up as I don't have it infront of me, nor do I know enough about it.