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Biggest tire size w/out a lift

156K views 163 replies 68 participants last post by  Ry_Guy3788 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
What is the Biggest tire size without a lift and without any rubbing that can fit on a 2017+ Jeep Compass?
 
#7 ·
Hernán Grimberg said:
What is the Biggest tire size w/out a lift and without any rubbing that can fit on a 2017+ Jeep Compass?
This question has not yet been very thoroughly evaluated, the 2nd gen Compass just came out last year and very few people change tires right away on a brand new vehicle, so there just isn't a lot of experience yet from others to draw on.

I checked into it a bit early on and mainly what I seemed to find is
1) There is not much room for a larger tire, only a little bit wider and you are in danger of rubbing the strut towers up front and as mentioned in the back the rear tire is awfully far forward in the wheel well, and
2) There is not enough torque in the 2.4 N/A motor to afford losing some of it to turn over a larger tire.

Physics dictate that you will loose performance and gas mileage with any increase in tire height and weight. How much of course depends on how much bigger than stock. I'm not sure on the warranty, we have heard conflicting information about how large a tire can be before it causes you issues in that department. That is yet another reason people tend to run stock-size tires on brand new cars.
 
#8 ·
This question has not yet been very thoroughly evaluated, the 2nd gen Compass just came out last year and very few people change tires right away on a brand new vehicle, so there just isn't a lot of experience yet from others to draw on.



I checked into it a bit early on and mainly what I seemed to find is

1) There is not much room for a larger tire, only a little bit wider and you are in danger of rubbing the strut towers up front and as mentioned in the back the rear tire is awfully far forward in the wheel well, and

2) There is not enough torque in the 2.4 N/A motor to afford losing some of it to turn over a larger tire.



Physics dictate that you will loose performance and gas mileage with any increase in tire height and weight. How much of course depends on how much bigger than stock. I'm not sure on the warranty, we have heard conflicting information about how large a tire can be before it causes you issues in that department. That is yet another reason people tend to run stock-size tires on brand new cars.


The Compass Sport can look a lot nicer with a bigger size tire. The wheel well seems a bit tight, that is true.
My question is how much higher you can go, maybe just 1/2” more?


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#12 ·
What is the Biggest tire size w/out a lift and without any rubbing that can fit on a 2017+ Jeep Compass?

What are you trying to accomplish with changing tire size? What size tires are on the rims stock.

If your looking to increase ground clearance there sadly is not much to be gained. Depending on how your using your Jeep gaining even a little may be worth it. However if your trying to get into a tire size that offers a more aggressive tire selection you might not need to change the tire size very far from stock. As noted we don't have much room to play with as far as clearance with non-lifted new body Compass.

I myself will likely be going to a different tire size on our Trailhawk when the stock tires wear out just so I can get into a more aggressive tire. I have been playing with a tire size calculator and think a 225/65/17 might be the answer.

According to the tire size calculator a 215/65-17 (stock Trailhawk tire) is 28" tall and 8.5" wide the 225/65-17 is 28.5" tall and 8.9" wide. Looking at a speedometer calibration calculator for different size tires shows this tire size will toss the speedo off by 1.1 MPH at 55 MPH So little effect there. I don't feel this will have a noticeable effect on driving dynamics as I have often just bumped up a full inch on tire height on a lot of different vehicles without seeing much if any effect.

If you want to really push tire size to the max your going to have to do some measuring. Measure all clearances with the vehicle on flat level ground wheels straight. Then with wheels turned full lock each direction. Then place the vehicle off chamber on right and left sides stuffing the tires into the wheel wells and measure all clearances. With these numbers in hand you can use an online tire size calculator to break tire sizes down to easier direct measurements to find what will fit with in your measurements. I would allow for some error as not all tire manufacturers end up with the size the tire should be by the math. Some brands might come up a little short and or narrower than what the sidewall numbers reflect. Also some tires have a shoulder design that can offer more clearance than others.

Best of luck and please post what you end up going with as well as how they fit. As pointed out these things are so new we just don't have a lot of data on stuff like this!
 
#13 ·
Having the 16 inch wheels comes in handy here. Rather have the larger tire wall to fill in the wheel wells as opposed to the larger wheels with less tire wall.

I think the 225/70 for 16's and as mentioned about 225/65 17's are going to be the best bets - with little to no noticable change to performance / fuel economics.

Again, i'll test this out next week and report back for 16 inch wheels. Someone else will have to take the plunge for the 17s.
 
#14 ·
I totally agree for off road use I would rather fill the wheel wells with tire rather than rim. Taller sidewalls give you a flexer tire with better cushion to the rim and room to air down when needed. I wish the Trailhawk was on a 16" rim in fact.

I feel the tire sizes listed are the best way to play it safe and get into a tire size with more tire choices. I also worry for those with the 9 speed auto how it would handle the shift points with a much taller tire on it than stock maybe those with lifts and bigger tires can add some prospective here.

With the 17s swapping the 215/65 to the 225/65 is only costing 1/4 inch of fender space all around so even where the fender is close in the rear it will be fine. I just went out on the hill next to the house and flexed our Trailhawk and I would not be comfortable going up a full inch on tire size with that close fit in the rear wheel well but a half inch would be fine. I worry a little bit about the tiny bit of width increase in the front seems to me looking at it awhile ago the tires are a tight fit in there. But again width will be divided between inside and outside so like.2 inches will likely be ok. But again we need to look at tire shoulder type a square shoulder might get into trouble where a rounded shoulder might clear with room to spare.

For the 16s stock I have listed 215/65-70 which comes up to 27" x 8.9 the 225/70 16 come up as 28.4 x 8.9. So pretty much the same outside as the 225/65-17 you gain around an inch of side wall though which is nice for off roading. However your going to suffer around 3 MPH of speedo reading since your moving up around 1.4 inches in tire size depending on brand so be mindful of that. Given the two swapped tire sizes is near identical on the outside the fit should be good. Thinking about it though one might still want to do some measuring as ours is a Trailhawk which has different part numbers for some of the suspension components. This might help us maintain a bit more clearance in the rear on up travel. So flex it up and look how tight that funky wheel arch in the rear gets.

I'm thinking one of these days we might be able to work up a what fits and what hits thread as we start modding these little Jeeps. smile:
 
#16 ·
I don't know any of us know for sure but my guess and it is only a guess it depends how far out of spec you go. Only a little like half an inch taller a tech would never likely even look at the tire size because this small of a difference would not stick out to the eye. However an inch or more will be pretty noticeable add a lift of course and it becomes something that really stands out.

If you really want to know for sure contact Jeep warranty and ask if they say it will not affect warranty save their communication in case you need it at a later date!
 
#18 ·
one of the concerns regarding warranty coverage and overall tire diameter is the number of revs per mile. Larger tire causes the odometer to read less than actual miles travelled. For example if you have a powertrain failure at 95,000 km they could argue that the real mileage could already be over the 100,000 km point, due to the larger tire. You can of course show your tire receipt ie tire size XX was installed at that date and mileage, simple calculation to show what the max difference would be from current odometer reading.
 
#26 ·
UPDATE:

So I've driven about 100/200 miles on my 225/70/16's (2018 Sport 4x4). There is no rubbing and the tires/wheels fill in the wheel wells a lot nicer. Love the added weight and extra traction/grip makes the Compass feel more solid and capable.

225/70/16's clock in right around 28.4". So I can confirm that anything around this size should fit the 2nd gen Compass without a lift. It is pretty close on the front half of the back wheels, but they fit snug and nice. Turn rub in the front is nonexistent and has a good bit of space.
 
#27 ·
Great info! Which tires did you end up going with and as always pics would be great!!!!

Just for reference for others 225/70-16 on the tire size calculator comes in at 28.4" tall and 8.9" wide. A 225/65 17 is almost exactly the same and comes up as 28.5" tall and the same 8.9" wide so fit should be the same just less sidewall height. Again though different shoulder types and brands may size and fit differently.
 
#30 · (Edited)
With a 17” rim size, it seems we can only go from the stock 225/60/R17 to a 225/65/R17 and that means going from 27.63” diameter to 28.52”. I don’t know if anyone tried these bigger tires yet. All we know so far is that 28.40” fits well...
About the loss in mpg with these tires, and using your numbers from your old Chevy Tracker, that means that if we increase the diameter in about 1/2”, we will loose about 0.57 in mpg in city.
If the Compass has a city mpg of 23, then, we will have maybe 23.57 mpg?


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#32 ·
With a 17” rim size, it seems we can only go from the stock 225/60/R17 to a 225/65/R17 and that means going from 27.63” diameter to 28.52”. I don’t know if anyone tried these bigger tires yet. All we know so far is that 28.40” fits well...
From what I see on our Trailhawk stepping up to a 28.5" tall and 8.9" wide should not be an issue But again with the Trailhawk we start with a 28" and it has different struts and possibly springs.

Michael Guerrera does not have a Trailhawk and reports the 28.4"tall and 8.9" tires fit fine I don't think that .1 difference in height would have caused him any issues he can likely tell us how tight the 28.4" tall fits. But really it is what like a 10 of an inch so if we don't have that to spare we need not change tire size at all as a little dirt in the wheel well would be an issue.

About the loss in mpg with these tires, and using your numbers from your old Chevy Tracker, that means that if we increase the diameter in about 1/2”, we will loose about 0.57 in mpg in city.
If the Compass has a city mpg of 23, then, we will have maybe 23.57 mpg?
I wish the math was just that simple I was just using my Tracker as a lose reference. My Tracker is much much lighter than the Compass and gets like 4.87 axle ratio. It also runs a 2.0 engine and 4 speed auto. While going up to a so much larger tire screwed with the last number in drive ratio I had a lot more gearing in my favor. Then with less weight I was not having to move much weight with that taller gear ratio.

With our Jeeps I don't know how all the variables will play out. The 9 speed transmission is much more computer intensive so it might adapt better. Then the whole gearing thing. The Trailhawk has better gearing to handle a slightly larger tire than other trim. However it is also around 300 lbs heavier which will hurt it a with the taller tire around town an climbing hills. I still hold that increasing tire size 1" or less will cost very little MPG. Again though I'm talking about tires that are not way heavier than stock. Toss those 39 lbs BFG tires on there it is going to kill your city MPG or when your climbing a hill. It is just too much rotating weight for a Compass.

We are getting 23 MPG summertime with our Trailhawk on wife's work commute which is absolutely terrible for getting decent MPG. If I had to guess what jumping up .5 inches in height on our tire size will be on MPG on her drive it might drop to around 22.5. But on the interstate around 75 MPH we tend to get 27-28 MPG. With the taller tire I'm thinking we will pretty much gain our losses back maybe a tad more due to lower RPM. All this assumes we keep the tires around the same stock weight.

So keep the tires on the lighter side and I think you will likely gain back on the interstate what you lose city unless you never have places you drive with long stretches with no or very few stops and a speed limit of 55-75. Keep in mind unless you get your computer programmed for the larger tires your MPG display and odometer will be off. So to know what your really getting your going to have to hand calculate MPG by hand using math to account for the tire size increase. :)
 
#44 ·
From all the wheel wells, I am most concerned with the rear ones on the front side of the tire that is too close to the fender as can be seen on this photo. If I go with a 225/65/R17 which adds 1/2” more to the tire radius, will it be extremely close and dangerous to the fender?




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#51 ·
Just to clarify for everyone, this is a 1st Gen Compass.

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#52 ·
I finally changed the stock tires for a bigger size 225/65/17 and after 5 days, I had the Low Pressure tires warning on the dashboard. I checked the tires and in fact, they were low. I put more air and kept the 35 psi on the front and 32 psi on the rear, but the readings on the dashboard were 34 psi on the front and 31 psi on the rear. Now, a day later, I start seeing 33 and 30 on one side... seems like they are loosing air? What can it be?


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#55 ·
Take them back and have them investigate. Shouldn't be any issue if they were properly installed and were new, good tires.

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#65 ·
cannoncino said:
Hi, this morning I installed Yokohama G015 Geolandar All Terrain 225 55 18 on my Italian Compass Limited.
Do you like it?


I've been waiting forever for someone to try those tires and post something so I could get an idea of what they would look like on my Jeep, and you even have the same color!

Post more pics! Post a video! Post a review! How do they ride? Are they loud? How do they feel?

 
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