Will R205 55 R15 rims fit on a 2001 Honda Civic EX if the stock tires are 185 65 R15?

Answer 1

They of course will fit, but.

The overall diameter of the 205/55-15 tire is 23.88"

The overall diameter of the 185/65-15 tire is 24.46"

This will cause your engine to turn more revolutions per hour (refer to correction) thus using more fuel. When your speedometer reads 60mph you will only actually be traveling at 58.5 mph.

Usually you don't want to go more than 3% +/- stock diameter. (race applications are excluded from this rule as different tire sizes are often used in motorsports as a cheap way to quickly change the gear ratio on longer/shorter tracks)

On a street car a 2.5% difference in overall diameter is a little large and may make the wheel gap on the car larger and odd looking. Even if the car is lowered you will have extra space in front of and behind the wheel which looks odd. Recommendation: If you are going to go with a 2.5% difference, go with a larger tire instead of smaller. Otherwise try to find another tire/wheel setup that puts the overall diameter closer to the stock diameter. Maybe wider tire (which may require a wider wheel 6.5" wide wheel is optimal with a 195-215 width tire, 7" is generally for 205-225 tire, 8" wide wheel is generally optimal with a 235-255 tire.

To find what tire is closest to your stock size find a Tire Size Calculator. Many websites have them. Plug in your stock tire size and your hypothetical tire size(width, sidewall ratio, and inner diameter-wheel size). Good calculators will tell you the stock diameter, new diameter, revolutions per mile, tire width, sidewall height, and % different from stock.

Once you find a tire size that is as close to stock as possible, check parameters in your fender-well to make sure it will not rub on the suspension or the fender; go back and forth using guess-and-check with different sizes until you find the best fit. Take into account alignment and different angles of the wheel at different places in the suspension travel. You don't want to rub the fenders or struts every time you go into a driveway. Solutions to this can be stiffer suspension, fender rolling, wheel spacers. Sometimes a combination of two or all three. EX: You put a wide tire and it rubs the strut so you put a wheel spacer, now it rubs the fender. You can roll the fender and often solve the problem. Not what everyone wants to deal with but for the proper look and performance the options are there.