Bought a car with wrong tire size!

[LasVegasMagnum]

Hi guys. My g/f and I bought a 2005 Magnum in December. She really liked the chrome 20" wheels that were on it, and they were probably the major selling point. I had problems with the shifter, so I brought it to the dealer for work. While there, our service tech tells us that the tire size is wrong and if it's true we've put on 15k miles since the last service. It's absolutely impossible that we've driven that far! He goes on to tell me that the tires on the car are a 35 series tire, when it should be a 45 series. I did a little research on the 35 series and it looks like that part is correct. So, I took the car back to the original dealer I'd bought the car from and explain what's going on. The manager says he'll get back to me once he speaks with his "tire manager."

What do you guys think I should expect to happen? I mean, the miles have a significant impact not only on the resale value of the car, but also weigh heavily on the extended service plan I bought with the car!

I think the dealer should AT LEAST pay for new tires on the car, and give me some cash credit towards the warranty that's been eaten up by the misguided mileage.

[Mr. iNCREDIBLE]

I seriously doubt that the tires made that much of a difference...

i think the offset of the speedo is like 1 - 1.5 mph.

so in 10,000 miles you lost what maybe 10 - 15 miles on the ODO...

if the speedo is running fast, and you gained the same if it is running slow...

check the calibration on the speedo... but i'm willing to bet you aren't that far off... not enough to rack up 1000s of miles...

[vinny68]

I think the dealer misplaced the decimal point.

[LasVegasMagnum]

I would agree that this shouldn't come up to 1000's of miles, but there is just no way we drove it that much. In the course of a year, we've NEVER gone over 12k. But to suggest that we topped that by 3k in 2/3 the time? Impossible. Maybe the previous owner put the tires on and tried to have it calibrated, but calibrated it the wrong way?

Maybe they changed it to Kilometers!!! LOL

[dumpster]

its not the worng size, you can put whatever your preference in tire would be

[GasGunR]

If the tires are 35 series instead of 45 series, they are a taller tire with e larger circumference... meaning that for every revolution of the wheel / tire, your car goes farther than your odometer reads.

Lets say the 35 series tire is 30" tall and the 45 series tire is 31' tall, every time the wheel makes a revolution you would be going slightly over 3" FARTHER than the odometer would be reading. I'm not going to do the math but it takes alot of 3 inches to make a mile, and even if it were off, it would be in your favor on the warranty, not the other way around. Therefore you have no complaint IMO. Some people have purposely used 45 series tires on 20" rims as they felt it looked better with the wheel wells filled a bit more and they felt safer driving over the potholes with more tire between the rim and the hole.

[formerice]

If you had 35's and the car is designed for 45's and you speedo reads 107 mph you would only be traveling 100 mph. It wont do any harm except the ride may suffer some and your wheel well gap is gonna be kinda big. Just replace em with 45 series when they wear out. If you have a hand held GPS or can borrow one you can check your speedo. Indicated 53.5=50 mph. You will actually pick up some out of the hole acceleration with the short sidewall tires.

[Cam]

You should be roughly 5MPH off. Regardless, if it were as much as 10 off it'd equate to this.

For every thousand miles you drove, you'd gain one hundred miles in addition to what you actually did. So if you did drive 10,000, it would have only been 11K on the odometer.

And if the dealer tries to pass off some form of BS that this impacts the car in any negitive manner, tell him to blow it out his %^&.

All you did was add miles that didn't exist.

[boggart]

If the tires are 35 series instead of 45 series, they are a taller tire with e larger circumference

Exactly opposite.


Hey LVM, what size tires are on your Magnum?

[GasGunR]

Yep, I hosed this up from the gitgo... I misread the original post and transposed the numbers in mine... I'm a loser

Thats what I get for reading and posting while handling a hundred phone calls in my office

Sorry!

Don

Exactly opposite.


Hey LVM, what size tires are on your Magnum?

[mojo]

If your tires are taller than the originals then the miles on your odometer would read to low. Since your new tires are 35's they are likely shorter that the originals and the miles on your odometer likely read to high. The stock tires on my SRT8 are 28.7" tall. It really depends on the size of your tire a 265 35 20 is about 27.4". That would make your odometer read about 5% to high.

[boggart]

Yep, I hosed this up from the gitgo... I misread the original post and transposed the numbers in mine... I'm a loser

Thats what I get for reading and posting while handling a hundred phone calls in my office

Sorry!

Don

No hard feelings I hope. I figured it was something like that, but didn't want anyone to take that to the bank and be confused. It's amazing the number of people that don't know the 35 or 45 or whatever is the height of the sidewall as a % of the tread width.

[LasVegasMagnum]

They're 35's. I know the difference should be marginal at best. Maybe she's been taking the car out without me knowing while I'm at work or something? Hmmm...

If anybody sees me on Judge Judy record it so I can have a copy!!!

[FleshWound]

If you can get the height of the tire and find out which setting the starscan is showing for wheel size calibration, we'll do the math and know the exact variance.
I'm not sure if the starscan will tell the date of change for wheel calibration, that is if it (wheel size) was changed at all with the scan tool.

Are the wheels OEM or added later?

[boggart]

They're 35's. I know the difference should be marginal at best. Maybe she's been taking the car out without me knowing while I'm at work or something? Hmmm...

If anybody sees me on Judge Judy record it so I can have a copy!!!

I'm sorry but "they're 35's" is not a tire size. That's only 1/3 of the equation. Now you already said they are 20's. We need all 3 numbers 355/35r20 to know how tall your tires are. Without all 3, everyone is only guessing whether your tires are taller/shorter than stock. What we need to know now is the tire width.