I have a 95 Ford Explorer and my tires and very bad. I don’t have the money for new tires, but someone gave me a set of decent used tires, but I don’t know if they will work on my truck. Can anyone tell me? I tried looking online, but can’t seem to find a clear answer. The new tire size is P235/60R15.
Thanks!
What size are your current tires?
The 235 and the 15 are good but maybe not the 60. What I saw is your vehicle came with either a 70 or 75 aspect size. That number represents the proportion of sidewall to tread when measured from inner bead, inner sidewall, tread, outer sidewall to outer bead. 60 means 60% of that dimension is sidewall, 40% is tread width. The lower the number, the wider and shorter the tire. The higher the number, the narrower and taller. Issues would be clearance. A GOOD tire store or a knowledgable enthusiast should be able to tell you.
Yeah, looking at tirerack.com it looks like the '95 Explorer came with either 225/70-15s or 235/75-15s (some morels came with 16 wheels - if you’ve got those, 15" tires will definitely not fit! :))
The tires you’re looking at will probably fit, but are quite a bit shorter than stock - either 7.8% shorter or 12.6% shorter, depending on what stock size came on your vehicle. At the least, your engine will be turning higher RPMs at a given speed than before. and your speedometer will not be showing your correct speed.
Uh, this is GQ
All 235 tires are nominally 235 mm wide no matter what the aspect ratio.
The rim to tread measurment is a percentage of the width
235 x .75 = 176
225 x .7 = 157
235 x .6 = 141
So the larger stock tire is 3/4’’ higher than smaller one.
The 60 profile tires are 5/8’’ smaller than the smaller one.
The 2 stock tires will give slightly different ride heights and speeds at a certain RPM. The 60 profile ones will be smaller yet. Chance are on the road, the lower ride won’t make much difference except in the deepest snow. You will notice a difference is speed. Fortunately, an indicated 55 mph will be actually closer to 50. Bigger tires can result in speeding tickets.
As for the 16’’ tires, my guess is all the wheelwells and spindle locations are the same no matter what size tire. The 15’’ tires won’t fit 16 inch rims, but mounted on 15 inch rims should work. If you are getting the rims too, it should be OK
Ideal, no. Better than running worn out tires on bad roads? All the above figures are based on new tires. Worn out ones can be 1/2 smaller and lethal.
Hm, I used an online tire calculator and must have put in an incorrect number, because I just did it again and got different results than last time. If your original tires are 225/70-15s the new ones will be 1.3" inches larger in diameter (4.7%). If your original tires are 235/75-15s the new ones will be 2.78" inches larger in diameter (9.6%).
Yes, if his truck has 16" wheels, 15" wheels would almost certainly fit (unless that model came with larger brakes, which could conceivably be too large to fit within smaller wheels). However the OP said he got new tires, he didn’t mention them coming with wheels. If he had to buy wheels just fit the new free tires, it’d usually be cheaper just to buy new tires that’d fit on the wheels he already has. 
How old are the used tires? Rubber hardens with age, and if they’re old enough they can lose a lot of their grip, even if they’ve got plenty of tread left.
If you roll one of the new tires out to the truck, I think you will clearly see it is slightly smaller than the old ones as I said. Or use a yard stick or tape measure.
As an old math teacher, show your work. I did
235/60R15 are 26.1 and 5.6 inches wide - the tires they’re getting
225/70R15 are 27.4 and 6.2 inches wide - stock tires
235/75R15 are 28.9 and 6.9 inches wide - stock tires
Santos L Halper has the numbers right, just backwards. The new ones will be smaller, not larger. thelabdude, you are measuring rim to tread, so 3/4’’ difference in rim to tread would be 1.5 inches (27.4 vs 28.9) in overall diameter. And 5/8" rim to tread would be 1.25 inches diameter (26.1 vs 27.4 rounded off). It gets confusing but you both agree if you read between the lines.
Engine RPM and speed changes may be calculated from either from radius or diameter. Actually it is the circumfrence, but they are all proportional. Ride height and wheelwell clearance are strictly radius.
D’Oh! Your right, I meant one thing and said the other.
As said above, if you go to a reputable tire store, they should have a fitment guide that will tell you what tires are compatible with your vehicle. You don’t really need to do all the fancy calculations .
I just thought you two were disagreeing. The numbers were the same but i wasn’t sure anyone would notice and Santos had initially said the new tires would be smaller, then larger, which was an obvious mistake. Sometimes I, probably wrongly, think I can help by being a referee.
Bottom line is that the tires are quite a bit smaller. In this difficult time, she may be better off using them anyhow as long as they have good tread