Thread: Legal (?) tyres to suit 5.5 Defender rims.

what does your tyre placard/owner's manual indicate ?

If you take the choice of running D1 wheels, as many defer owners have, you can satisfactorily go up to 235 85 16s - AND you can run them tubeless - another definite advantage. This size closely replicates the circumferencial dimension of the standard 7.50X 16 tyre.

If you go up to 255 85 16s on D1 rims you'll then find that the gearing is a lttle bit too tall for comfortably driving the standard 300tdi/R380 combination.

The problem with 235/85-16s is tyre manufacturers give different information, some saying it is a direct replacement for 7.50-16 while others say you can't and it has been on here very much with both replies. It seems to rear its ugly head every time someone mentions 235/85-16.

I think D1 rims look terrible on a Defender, the biggest problem with the original rims is the lack of a safety bead, and despite many people having done it, you shouldn't run tubeless. If I could cut the centres and weld them to some rims with a safety bead and a little more width, I would. Now there's a plan.

Jeff

I would be looking to be guided by the tyre manufacturers guide. There is a little bit of variation sometimes between manufacturers rim width requirements.

Hi my name is Alex this is my first entry on this forum. I bought my first landrover a 1998 defender 130 less than a week ago. I bought this car unregistered and after much work now have it licensed. The car has all the fruit including Maxi drive rear diff, lift kits etc..anyway I bought this car to travel to work 200km around trip. 95% of the time it will be on road. However I found that at 100kph the rpms are 3450. I am r running 235/85/16 tyres. I dont want to play around with diff centres or transfers $$$.
1: Can I fit bigger rims and tyres ie: range rover 18", eg 255/85/18 to give me a bigger circumference and extra top end speed at lower rpms. I downloaded an app on my android, tyre calculator.
2: Has anybody done this change, do they rub, any recommendations.
3: Could this cause issues with my tranfers/ drive.
4: I believe I have 300tdi/R380/LT230/3.54:1, I can work this out but as previously stated I dont want to spend $ modifying diff centres or transfers.
Thanks in Advance for your replies

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Rims that fit your Defender are those from the Series 3 Land Rover through to the current model Land ROver, and all Range Rovers up to but not including the P38, and Discovery 1 rims.
The weight rating is important though, you must use an appropriately rated rim, this leaves out most alloy rims and some steel rims.
You will be hard pressed finding an 18" rim to suit a Defender.
The 255/85/18 tyre size you are talking about has a 35" diameter. That's quite big. You may find a 300tdi is a bit gutless on big rims if you have much stop-start traffic to contend with.
Many of us use 255/85/16 tyres comfortably-a 33" tyre, on a 6.5" or wider rim, such as the stock 130 rims or aftermarket steel rims from Dynamic (I have 7" wide Kings but don't recommend them)
35" tyres on 16" rims are typically wide enough that the tyres will rub on the wheel arches. Most who run 35" tyres also change diff ratios to around about 4.10:1.

I recommend aiming for a taller tyre on the rims you already have.

Thankyou for your reply isuzutoo-eh Interesting facts in regards to the rims and their load rating. I will now look at going down the path of fitting an overdrive.

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Originally Posted by alex.com

Thankyou for your reply isuzutoo-eh Interesting facts in regards to the rims and their load rating. I will now look at going down the path of fitting an overdrive.

Sent from my GT-I8730 using AULRO mobile app

What about a transfer ratio change ?