Please keep posting - the info is useful

 

Hib,
I'm looking foward to your new long term test on the Goodyear Assurance TripleTred All Season!
I put a set of them, 225/50/17 (one size bigger) on a month ago on my '08 2LT Panel - Still haven't worn the stickers off yet!
The only thing I noticed is the increase of roadnoise. Other than that I like them -really haven't gotten to drive in the rain yet....john

 

You know...I toyed with the idea of going to the 225. Did you see any speedometer inaccuracy once you did that?

 

Hib- I have added 225/50/17's on mine also a while back...Best move I made.
Slightly lower rpms on the highway. Better ride.

Riding next to the wifes Mopar, speed-o seems more in sync with hers.

But my math says almost 1.4 mph slower that actual speed traveling..

I'm fine with that !!

 

I didn't think that the 225 vs 215 made the tire height different, only wider. I thought the HHR used 55 series tires. So going to a 55 changes the aspect ratio and makes it slightly taller. And while RPM on the highway would decrease, so would acceleration since you are reducing the overall drive ratio. Back in the day, the cheap and easy way to get the effect of a higher rear end was to put shorter tires on your car.

 

Then 16" used a 55, the 17" used a 50, the 18" used a 45.

Since the aspec ratio is like a percentage of the width, having a wider tire will give you a taller tire by the sidewall with the same aspec ratio.

 

Having not read through all of this threar I can tell you as an ex tire jocky a few things about this tire

IIRC 780-790 tread wear. Yea its that High
Works great in the water and the slushy stuff
Dry traction is ok. It kept my ION on the road at Tail of the dragon.
ICE they suck IMHO

All in all a good tire you can get lots of mileage out of if you rotate them as needed.

 

Aside from a snow tire with steel studs, no tire is good on ice.

 

As for tire vs speed ratio visit web sites like the Tire Rack as they will give the tire dimentions and RPM of the tire so you can see how much or little difference there is. Note not all tires of the same size are identical between brands and models. You can take a BFG-Goodyear and Toyo of the same size and each can have a little different over all diameter.

 

You would be suprised how well some of the new compounds work. While studs are still the best they are not as much advantage as they used to be.