We have 2 cars, a subcompact and a minivan. I was looking at snow tires for both, and to my surprise, the tires for the smaller car are all more expensive. The Michelin X-Ice for the minivan, 215/65R/16, are $159.99, while for the subcompact, 215/55R/17, they’re $195.99. Other brands and models have a similar price jump.
What’s the reason for the price difference?
Bear in mind that the verb means “to carry a burden.”
I worked in a shop once, and the tires that were hardest to turn had the biggest “outside” number (215 here and 17 here). 55 describes the sidewall. Shorter ones are harder to turn-- ie, mount on the wheel.
215/55/17 is kind of an unusual ratio for a tire, and because it isn’t as common, doesn’t enjoy the low, low price that the 175/18/15 tires do, because that’s the manufacturer’s standard.
Places that give you “free” labor simply have the cost of install, mount & balance packaged into the cost of the tire.
ETA: just reread the OP-- the last number in 205/80/16 or whatever is tread depth. The more expensive tire has better tread depth, and may be a better overall winter tire.
Also, an few of those short sidewall tires are European, and there’s an import price on them. They are also a PITA.
AFAIK 205 is width in millimeter, 80 is the thickness in percent of width, then a letter R and 16 the rim diameter in inches???
So 205/80R16 is a tire 205 mm wide, 165 mm thick , radial and fits on a 16" rim.
Something I got hit by a few times is that the less usual sizes come at a significant premium. This could become doubly so for more specialised application.
The lower profile 55 series tire will usually come at a premium over a more mundane 65 tire.
You are right-- I shouldn’t post that late at night.
Smaller rims are harder to get, with the exception of scaled down standard tires, like tires for a economy car such as the Chevy Spark.
The smaller (16") tyres are cheaper than the larger (17") tyres. Why is that so surprising?
Yeah.
So the subcompact tires score as =, > , > versus the minivan tires. And unsurprisingly, are more expensive.
Beyond that:
None of these last items are factors in the OP’s case, but they are in lots of other tire purchases.
When talking about tire prices, the size of the car is not nearly as important as the size of the tire. The smaller car has bigger tires. All else being equal, bigger tires will naturally be more expensive than smaller ones.
Is the smaller car something primarily associated with a different market?
I have a Fiat 500 and a CMax, both of them have “unusual” tire sizes and they’re more expensive than the tires for my minivan, even though by weight and volume the van tires should cost more. It’s just supply and demand, the CMax is basically a European Ford product and the 500 is very Italian. The tires for both would be cheaper in France than my van tires because the relative commonality would be flipped.
The opening is bigger on the smaller car but the sidewall is shorter, if you stand both tires next to each other the 16" tire will be 7 tenths of an inch taller than the 17" tire. Visually it will look bigger and it will weigh a bit more.
But if you tried to mount the 17" tire on a 16" inch wheel, you wouldn’t say “It doesn’t fit because it’s too small.” You’d say, “It’s too big”. bob_2’s description of which tire is bigger is apt, and its also relevant when discussing prices. Tires made for bigger wheels are usually more expensive than the same–or very similar–tire made for a smaller wheel, even when the “smaller” tire has slightly more mass and height.
But if you just park a Fiat 500 next to a minivan, visually the minivan tires are going to look bigger, even though they’re 16s and the Fiat is 17s, which is exactly what happened to the OP.
Taking this to an absurd level, a Jeep with 35/15.5R15 mudding tires also have smaller opening than the Fiat, but nobody is going to look at them and say that they’re smaller.
But you’re no longer looking at similar tires. That’s a completely different type of tire. If you want to talk similar, then look at a 35/12/R16. That one will be much more expensive even though it is actually .2" smaller. Similar tires made for larger wheels are going to be more expensive.
We’re not talking about two completely different tires. I’m not even talking about two identically sized tires, where one is a racing tire, and the other an economy tire. We’re talking about similarly sized tires of the same brand, made by the same manufacturer–not mudding tires vs snow tires, or racing tires vs economy tires.
You can go on Tirerack right now and look at different tires. If the brand, model, width and aspect are kept as close as possible, the one made for a larger wheel is, IME, always going to be more expensive.
The OP had two tires that appeared to be the same size. If forced to bet on which will be more expensive, always go with the one on a larger wheel, without ever calculating which one is a few ounzes heavier or a fraction of an inch taller, and 99 times out of 100, you’ll probably be right.
Let’s set the prices aside for a minute. If you dragged my wife out into a parking lot where a Mini Cooper was parked next to a Toyota Sienna, the former with 17" wheels and rubber band tires and the latter with 16" wheels but big beefy sidewalls, and you asked the question, “Which tire is bigger?” She’s not going to say the Mini. You have to know a thing or two about cars and wheels to make that mental switch.
Look at the comment I was replying to, bob_2 asked, “Why is that so surprising?” I was explaining why. To a layperson, the Mini tires look small, even if the opening is larger, because they are small. In the same way that a 5" donut with a 1" donut hole is more donut than a 3" donut with a 2" donut hole. If you’re used to thinking of donuts, of course the Sienna tires are going to be what you point to as the “bigger” tire.
It’s counterintuitive that the Mini tires would be more expensive, and the OP’s confusion is entirely understandable.
I see.
Ok, I see. I never realized that the smaller car (a Kia Soul) has bigger tires than the minivan. It’s also odd that a Kia takes an unusual size.
215/55R/17 isn’t an unusual size. For a car it is pretty ordinary. At least for a moderately modern car 17 inch rims are quite common.
Over time, profiles have been dropping. You get a generally sharper feel to handling with lower profile and a sharper looking wheel.
However for more mundane vehicles higher profile is common. They are easier to make, more offer a more forgiving ride, better rolling resistance and don’t actually give anything away in terms of performance. A van is always going to get the higher profile. 65 is actually still pretty low.
The steady drop in profile and concomitant rise in wheel size caught me years ago. I had an original NA series Mazda Miata aka MX-5. It came on 14” rims. 185/60/14 to be exact. That was 1990. 15 years later I could no long buy performance tires for it. 14 inch rims just wasn’t on the radar of manufacturers for sporty tires. I ended up on OK tyres that wore like iron and felt about as performant. The latest model sits on 205/45/17. Same brand and series as I used to fit to my old car before they stopped making the right size.
My current car sits on 225/40/18 and 255/40/18. This was a mistake. These came at a significant price premium over the base 17” rims for no good result. Only recently has the price dropped - helped by a lot more cars using the same sizes. The latest model is on 19” rims. And so it goes.