Jim,

What is your opinion on the difference of the size of the contact patch between a 225/S-02 as compared to a 245/S-03?

Thanks,


Pierre

 

i my self also have the S03's on my car. and i live in soflo too. they are without a doubt hands down the best wet weather tire on the market. the things you will have to understand about these tires is this. yes you will have to bump up to a 245 rear. the problem being this. as you will notice they will far surpass the s02 in the wet. the reason being there is less contact patch of rubber on the ground. meaning there are more and larger grooves in the tire to channel water. so while your wet weather performance will grow greatly your dry traction is going to suffer. even though you are going up in a size in realality your tire will be the same as the oem s02 225. the oem s02 has a larger contact patch of rubber on the ground along with it being a very grippy tire. its an even trade off. give a some dry traction to gain wet traction. its a matter of what is more important to you. i myself have 18"s and have a 255 rear so the rubber i lost going from a s02 to s03
i have gained back just because it is a wider tire. hope this helps

 

My real concern is that a 245 tire is really "pinched" by only a 7.5 OEM wheel, which is something I neglected to specify in my question. This could actually reduce the size of the contact patch relative to a 225, everything else being equal. I already understand that the grooving in the S-03s reduces their contact patch relative to the SA-02s.

Pierre