Wheel sizes question

[australianpianoman]

I’ve found some nice 14” alloys to replace the 17s that the previous owner put on the car that are rubbing on the arches and basically ruining the handling. They’re 6.5j, et44 with 185/60 tyres fitted. By my calculations they should fit but the whole alloy wheels thing is a minefield, anyone out there with some advice on 14s?

[jimi]

Why 14's ? Thats smaller than standard, fitting them with 60 profile tyres will do nothing for the handling.
A 2001 MK3 would have had as standard:
Tyres: 185 x 55 x 15 Front. 205 x 50 x 15 Rear
Size: 15 x 6J front 15 x 6.5J rear
PCD: 4 x 100mm
Offset: 45mm
Centre Bore: 54.1mm
Wheel Nut Thread: 12 x 1.5mm
Wheel Nut Torque: 76ft/lbs (103 n/m)
The other problem with 14's is very limited tyre choice

[australianpianoman]

Thanks, difficult to find good cheap 15s where I am at the moment, hence the question about 14s. I have a feeling they might be too wobbly with 60 profile. Will keep looking!

[MR2DI4]

The move to 15inch wheels was a really big improvement over the 14inch. Basically someone screwed up with those or the tyre manufacturers never came to the party in making the correct rear tyre size in a 225/55R14

The stock 15inch wheels are great as they just bolt straight on and are the perfect fit.

Being able to fit a 225/50ZR15 tyre compared to a 205/60R14 made all the difference.

15inch road tyres are a problem for performance so I run street legal Toyo R888 race rubber on mine.

[jimi]

There was no move 15's, MK3 never came with 14's, not even as an option

[MR2DI4]

One would logically have thought we were talking the MK2 as its 14 inch that was mentioned.

Same still applies, find a set of the stock 15inch MK3 alloy wheels.

[jimi]

Your logic is flawed, the MK1 came with 14's with no change to 15

[Graeme23]

Hi everyone, could someone please tell me why my MR2 Roadster (MK3) with its original wheel sizes has bigger tyres on the back and smaller tyres on the front? Does that not mean that if you put a vertical chalk line on front and back tyres and rotated the front wheel 360° the chalk line on front tyre would return to its vertical line but the rear tyre would be 4 or 5 inches shorter distance. Could someone explain why Toyota decided to put bigger tyres on rear than front? Cheers. Graeme

[jimi]

All to do with the handling, it's not that unusual, many manufacturers do similar things.
On the later (Face-Lift) MK3's the rear wheels were 16" and the fronts 15" (Pre-Face-Lift were 15" all round).Since the car is rear wheel drive the distance the front wheels rotate is irrelevant, be different if it was 4WD