OK, at the risk of starting another World War, I'm asking anyway. What new tires should I buy for my coupe?

Ground rules:
The car is exclusively driven on the city streets and highways, at about the legal speed limit. High speed tires are not required.

The car has a V6 with a 5 speed, and a limited slip 3:55 rear gear. Massive sticky tires will be a waste of money.

I will be buying all 4 tires, and all will be the same size, I have 6 1/2" and 7" wide 15" diameter wheels.

Tires must be budget friendly, $200 each tires are too much once all the other required crap is added on.

Currently, the car has 10 year old Michelin 235.75.15 and I like them very well, but they are a bit large, and are very old. New tire size will be around 215.70.15, and they will be mounted black wall out.

New Michelin defender 215.70.15 will run around $650 total out the door price, which is at the top end of the budget.

See the pictures of the car in question.

What tire brands are good tires these days? Gene

some wide white walls would be cool on it

some "dubs" on gold, spoke 26's would be GREAT !
I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF ! well, my eyes are still watering at that thought ! ok, back to business.i bought some douglas brand [i forget what they were called, but i "think" cooper makes 'em?] tires for my bus last year in 215x70-15 size at the local wal-mart[let the pizzinanmoanin' begin] for $52.95ea. out the door. i mount & balance myself. i have had good luck with these tires in the past on several vehicles. they seem to ride and handle good for my purposes, and last long too. that means i'm not autocrossing nor drag racing, just old man driving.

[i can still see your car on gold spoke 26's ]

just funnin' ya gene. hope i didn't offend.

...nothing wrong with walmart, hey, money is money....
I am a big fan of Michelin but recently bought a set of Mastercraft (Goodyear?) from a local dealer. They were quite a bit cheaper than the Michelin and so far working well.

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Mastercrap tires? Run away. Daughters Exploder came with them and they were horrible. Bought a new set of Michelin LTX's for it and the difference was so noticeable my stereotypical blonde daughter even commented on it. The Mastercraft tires probably had half the tread left, dunno how old they were as it came witht he trucklet. So, YMMV, maybe they make them better these days.

I'd go with the Michelins if you can swing it myself.

Don't forget to recalibrate the speedometer is you change tire diameters in the back, usually it's a gear change in the trans but I dunno your specifics.

Come on, that thing won't do 65 off a cliff. Ok, just kidding. Coker has got lots of choices that might fit your "décor". Not cheap though. Wheels need to be color keyed to the car. Wide whites would be cool, or just black walls. I wouldn't go bigger than 70 series if you want the same sizes front and rear with those width wheels.

I'd stay with Michelin's they last forever .02

Rickster

Your coupe has a dirt track vibe and I was thinking a set of old school dirt track tires, but NOT cheap, about double your budget.

That thing is screaming for some wide tires all the way around? Why not a 245/60/15 BF Goodrich Radial T/A on all 4 corners with the whitewalls turned in? Maybe even 255 if they're 7" wheels. Otherwise, if you're pretty set on that size, you can rarely go wrong with Michelin.

I was surprised how hard it was to find affordable tires in 14/15 inch sizes. As much as I hate Walmart, I've bought my last two sets there (235 75r15 for the Durango). They also don't seem to "inflate" the tire fees as much as everyone else. Recently bought a newly new used set off CL for the Dart and they mounted them no problems, although they will check the date codes.

I've been a Michelin fan for years. Generally, these tires have held up well. I bought a set of Michelin Defender tires recently. Hope they hold up a little bit better than the last set of Michelin tires that came from Sam's Club. That set was rated at 65,000 miles, but only lasted 50,000 miles. (For what it's worth, that tire has been discontinued.) These tires are on on a full size 4x4 SUV my wife drives. Most of the time that vehicle wears the tires out before the tires rated mileage is reached.

I went to the TireRack website and looked at the reviews. The Defender tires were rated the best. You may want to check out the rating for the size tire your car requires.

Back when I had a pick-up truck, I put cheaper tires on it. It was only driven about 5,000 miles a year. With such low annual mileage, Michelin tires would expire from age rather than miles. The second reason for buying cheaper tires for the truck, is that truck was taken to the scrap yard, the dump, etc. I was concerned about tires being damaged by sharp objects. Better to damage a cheap tire than an expensive tire.

The OP wants all the same size tires and 2 of his wheels are only 6.5" wide. That limits his aspect ratio choice to 70 series tires. You could put 60 series tires on it, but it aint recommended for a 6.5" wide rim.

Hoosier comes to mind

Dirt track style

Hoosier comes to mind

Dirt track styled but street ones

Moparx, I hadn't really given any thought to the dubs with the gold spoke wheels, but now that I think bout them, I believe I'm going to pass on that idea. LOL! I no longer have the resources to mount and balance my own tires, and I don't want 4 more old tires hanging around here. I'll have to pay for mounting, balancing and disposal of the old tires. The price on the new Michelin's include a road hazard.

Crizila, The car can get to 75, no problem, as long as there is a good 30 mph tail wind! Really, it does OK, will will run with the traffic on the Interstate and pull about 18-20 mpg doing it. I'd just rather not, my need for speed has diminished when I realized the payoff on the ticket count over the years could have bought me some nice stuff. I'm done paying dues to the speed Gods.

MuuMuu101, My last experience with B F Goodrich wasn't a pleasant one, but that was a long time ago. Still not sure I would give them another chance, too many other choices out there. The current Michelin 235 75 15 are almost 9" wide and they bulge out pretty good from the 6 1/2" front wheels. I'm thinking the smaller size and lower profile might give the appearance of being wider without actually being a problem for the 6 1/2" wheels. When I picked up the rear wheel, the guy told me her had a set of 4, but 2 of them were only 6 1/2" instead of the 7".

As much as I would love to put a set of dirt track tires on this ride, the reality is, they are out of my price range, and this car does see some road miles. I'm not sure the street versions of the dirt tires are all that much streetable.

I intend on painting the wheels to be color keyed to the car, I just haven't figured out exactly how I want to do that. The car needs to be repainted (the white is actually primmer, and its shot, the blue was cheap paint and it doesn't last very long, but will be cheap paint again). It will be white and blue again, though I'm considering an off white. The color break may be different, more front to back then at the angle it currently is. The color of the bumpers is another thing that bugs me.

So suggestions on paint, tires, or whatever are open and welcomed. Your not going to offend me, I promise. The car will be going on a 2,000 mile round trip through 8 states in June! I will still need to have enough money left to buy gas, food, and lodging on vacation. If it wasn't for vacation, I'd probably run the current tires another year here locally, the old tires still look great. Gene

Unless he's putting on bias plies, which he is not, a "60 series" tire refers to the percentage of sidewall height to tread width, which has no bearing on rim or tire width.

To be fair, I think the BFG's in those size required a minimum of a 7" rim. I thought he had 6.5" or 7" rims available, not 6.5" on the front and 7" in the rear. My misunderstanding. Regardless, I still think it would look better with wider tires or dirt track tires to complete the look at the very least. But you can't go wrong with Michelin's.

MuuMuu, wasn't responding to you and yes you are correct in that the tire sizes he mentioned do require a 7" rim.

However, Crizila's comment on 60 series being too wide is archaic, that's a bias ply designation no one is talking bias plies here.

I agree.

I put 215 70 15s on cop rims on my 52 coupe. Ta radials with black side out. Seem fine to me. Price thru tire rack was inside your budget. Car looks right and sits right with stock suspension.

General Altimax are real good and quiet and can be had reasonable.

Hmmmm....

I put some Mastercrafts on my '93 Dakota not too long ago. Maybe not the BEST tire, but, better than the dangerous tires that were on the truck when I bought it.

I've only put about 500 miles on them so far. Quiet on the hwy, decent in the rain, ride quality seems a little better too.

I bought mine at Summit. Mastercraft Avenger G/T

I bought 4 tires and 4 'soft eight' rims with all the accessories and the bill came to just over $650.00. Locally, I couldn't find JUST tires for much less than $650.00.

Ever since the Deluxe Champion and Super Sport days, I always bought Fire-Stone.

They were good enough for top fuel and funny cars then and I tend to stick with things that don't foul up on me. That's why I still drive MOPAR.

Fast forward to this year. I put Fire-stones Fusion tires on both mini vans. They are what Fire-stone has for an economy tire these days instead of the Deluxe Champion. Not sure if they have a size tall enough for you. The 16's are 28"X7", the 15"s might be wider. That car is not here now. They are decent tires so far and hold up to 50#s of pressure on road trips to help mileage. Time will tell how long they will last. I put 350 miles a day on for work last winter and am now doing about 140 miles a day. The tires are quiet and feel great. They go through rain and snow just fine, but I dropped the pressure to 35#s for the snow and saw a drop in mileage.

I am looking at the receipts now and I paid $163.00 for a pair of 235-70-15 on the '01 and $121.00 for a pair of 215-65-16 on the '07 with everything included, even disposal of the old tires...

Well, I ended up putting on a set of Hercules tires, 225 x 75 x 15, 40,000 mile tires (these tires will likely never see 40,000 miles before the "time" runs out on them) at the recommendation of my friend in the tire business. Tires come with a 1 year road hazard warranty, total come to $450 out the door on my car.

We have just returned from a 2500 mile vacation with the new tires, which are now a little over a month old. The tires were a bit noisy on some of the grooved surface roads, but were very quite on smooth roads. we experience several different road surfaces as well as rain and freezing cold. The tires were trouble free, as one would expect from new tires. Gene

For anyone else looking for cheaper tires I second the Fuzion tires from Firestone. They do what a tire is supposed to do, rain or shine.

Not too bad in the snow, either, although there are plenty of better tires. Just sayin' there are plenty of worse tires.

R.