[sandraktalina]

HI, I just have a question maybe somebody could help me with this. I love my 2003 Ford Focus ZTS but is giving me a very hard time right now. When they sold it to me they gave me its four tires in a very small size for the rim (205/40/16) not the original off course, and I have had to buy since then many tires everytime that I got a flat tire which ended up being very expensive for my budget. I decided to change the size of the tires to 205/50/16 but since I did not know much about it my dad recommended to buy 205/55/16 cause it would resist more supposely.

I didn't buy the four of them because it was very expensive and we wanted to try them so they put the two 205/55/16 tires in the back and two 205/40/16 were still in the front. Yesterday when I was driving on the highway one of the front tires exploded and I suppose it was because it might be too heavy in the front now, but I just simply don't know what happened. Now, I don't know what size to change the front tires for? 205/55/16 or 205/50/16 (original)? Wouldn't the car be too heavy for new 205/50/16 tires in the front if I already have 205/55/16 in the back? [I don't want them to explode again] Or would it be better for the front to be the same size as the ones in the back 205/55/16 in order to support the weight, although they are not the original ones?
I'm a bit afraid because I went to this site http://www.1010tires.com/TireSizeCalculator.asp?submit=yes&vehicle=yes to compare both sizes and they mentioned to be aware that when changing a tire size they recommend staying within 3% of the diameter of the orignal tire, because more than that could lead to break failure and I notice that the diameter difference is 3.22%. What should I do? Had it worked in your cars?

Thanks in advance

 

[Shadowrunner]

205/50R16 is the stock size. you should buy 4 new tires in that size

 

[coolpooler]

Shadowrunner is right. Buy 4 new tires 205/50R16. With the Focus you are better off having all 4 tires the same size, otherwise the suspension won't work like it should.

 

[sandraktalina]

ok thank you guys

 

[SkaAddict]

And just to clairify further, you would've been fine with 205/55 R16s on all corners. I run that size in the winter (mainly because when I bought my winter tires in 2004 that's all Tire Rack had in stock), and the worst I have to deal with is minor scraping against the front splash shields with the wheel cut to either extreme. A 205/55 tire is only about 1cm higher than a 205/50 (the /XX denotes the percentage of the tire width that the sidewall is), so its really not going to make that big of a difference in saving the tire if you smack a pothole (etc.), and I doubt it would be any worse at corner handling than a /50 tire.