I'm on the lookout for a 85 or 86 C4 and have done some research into them. It seems that the 255/50-16 tyres are an odd size and after speaking to my local tyre guy yesterday, I'll have to pay somewhere in the neighbourhood of $450 to $500 each if I can find them.
So I'm wondering if later 17 inch wheels will be a direct fit onto these cars? Spacers are illegal here and I'm not a fan of them anyway, so if there's no 17" wheel available I might as well go aftermarket, but I would prefer the stock look.

 

The later 5-spoke wheels are/were available in the appropriate offsets to avoid spacers/adapters. They are harder to find now than many years ago. You might consider most any aftermarket that would offer a correct fitment.

I seem to recall a vendor/manufacturer "down your way" that did wheels with a correct OR very close fitment. There's many C4 owners "down your way" and I expect many will catch this post and respond.

 

Here
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....e&autoModClar=

 

Wow. For that price, will he swallow too? See if you have a Discount Tire near you. I found them $20 more with the mount and balance and taxes than Tirerack if you figure in shipping. They will price match too. Free rotations

 

I'm sorry but when I work out how to, I'll ammend my profile. The reason the tyres are so expensive is because I'm in Australia.
My tyre bloke did a check and there's 2 B.F.Goodrich tyres of that size in Australia and they're $450 each.

 

I understood your "location" and i thought most would "catch on" particularly after I dropped a hint!!

 

Ozy
I'm here in the U.S. and the 255-50 R16 are apparently hard to find also.


Tires.com. TireRack.com and my local Tire Discounters all want to fit 225-50 R16 on non-Z51 cars. Unacceptable in that the RPO codes on my car list 255-50 R16 in addition to the owner's manual and FSM listing the larger size.


Keep looking for the right size tire or look into 17" tire/wheel combination w/ a 36mm offset. IIRC, 36mm offset wheels were used thru '88 and '89-on use a 50mm offset.




Jonathan.....

 

Not sure I follow. I ran for an 86 Corvette and they list 255 50VR16 front and back not 225.

 

255-/50-R16's are pretty much an endangered species. upgrade to 17" wheels with the correct offset (no need for adapters). in fact, i'm not sure if there is any factory 17 inchers (w/ correct offset), that are a direct fit for the 84-87 models. a couple companies with repros are AFS and OE wheels. they have a decent selection of direct fit 17 inch wheels. the tire rack has a good selection of 275/40-R17. not sure what you will have to pay for shipping. i'm figuring your shipping would be the killer.

 

If they're that hard to find where you are, see if you can get 245-50/R16's and at what price. Happened the PO of mine put a set on before I purchased it. Speedometer ran a tad fast but the tires (BDG's Comp II) work out just fine on it.
That size seems to be a bit more available here from what I've seen. Also many have gone to 17" tires or larger successfully but then you also have to get new rims either in the right offset or use spacers (which I hate to recommend).

 

Shipping shouldn't be a problem as I can fill the car with anything I like and the cost remains the same. I just have to pay 10% tax on them.

 

Check the Parts for sale here. I have 2 BFG G-Force 255/50/16 Brand new, never mounted, still with the stickers on them for $180.00 for the pair for sale.

 

That's an excellent price for a couple of tyres but I would still have the problem of shipping them to LA. As I haven't found my car yet, I don't know whether I need tyres or not. The car might have aftermarket 17" wheels or it might have new tyres on it, which being used as a weekend driver might last me 6 or 7 years.
Where I live registration for a car is roughly $750 per year, but if you belong to a car club you can get a restricted use permit. This has all the features of registration but you're required to fill in a log book for each day of use, but it allows 90 days driving per year for about $140, or 45 days for $75. When you own a classic car and 6 classic bikes, it makes sense to use the permit scheme.

 

Since you DON'T HAVE the C4 YET! Shopping for the car should maybe influence your buy. Many '87 and earlier if having 17" then many/most might have used adapters/spacer to upgrade.

Tire "date codes" should influence your buying considerations I'd think.

Can you just not use "spacers" OR are the "adapter style" also not allowed?

Since you need to ship the car anyways if you choose a car with 16" just buy the tires in LA and have mounted there tossing the old tires. Might not be as difficult as you think. You avoid the 10% tax I'd think also. If you considered this maybe the tire "date code" could be used as a bargaining tool - buy the car maybe stipulating tire replacement with the BFG product. I saw a set of these mounted and balanced at a local shop waiting for the customer and it certainly looked to be a tire to consider.

I'd think you have many options!!

 

You're correct that I don't have the car yet, but I don't want to pass on a good car just because it needs tyres. From what I've been told, 255/50-16 tyres aren't too common in the US either, but yes it is an option to buy a set in LA, but what is it going to cost me?
I've seen cars with later model wheels on them for sale, but I'm trying to find out whether they use spacers to fit them. As I said, all spacers are illegal in Australia unless they were originally fitted to the car, so I don't want to buy something that I will have to change when I get the car home. I don't have a problem with the stock 16" wheels, in fact I quite like them, it's just that the information that I seem to be getting is that those tyres are hard to find and pretty expensive.

 

A couple of thoughts.

There are not very many tires in the OEM 255/50/16 size. Places like TireRack.com and DiscountTireDirect.com have web sites with pretty good prices compared to your quote, but I don't know if they will ship to you or how much.

The thought of using 245/50/16 tires can work pretty well if you have the base suspension because it has 8.5" wide wheels. If it is a Z51 car with the 9.5" wide wheels the 245/50/16 size will be stretched a little and outside of the manufacturers recommended size for the wheels. The speedometer would not be off very far. When the speedometer reads 60 mph the car actually will be going 59 mph.

The wheel offsets changed in '88. The '84-'87 wheels are all 16" with the right offset for an '87. The '88-'96 use the newer offset (even though the '88 base wheel is a 16", it has the newer offset). The 17" wheels will work without spacers, but will sit inboard of the stock position and may look a little strange, but several on the forum have done that. That probably means that the C5 front wheels can be used for all four corners since they are similar sizes and offsets to the late C4 wheels.

There is another OEM wheel that can work. The C6 Z06 and GS cars use an 18 x 9.5" wheel with a 40 mm offset which would be very close to your original position. If you can get a tire with the right diameter there (like a 255/40/18 or 285/35/18) it could work.

Good luck.

 

The Tire Rack does have BF Goodrich tires in 255/50-16 and they are probably available from Discount Tire Direct at a similar price and shipping charge.

All 84-87 Corvettes used a 255/50-16 tire regardless of the suspension option. The '88 used a 255/50-16 tire and a 16" wheel as standard. There was a 275/40-17 tire and 17" wheel available with the Z51 and Z52 suspension options. The diameters and tread widths of the 255/50-16 and 275/40-17 are very close in size so there are no issues with clearance or speedometer readouts.

The offset for 16x9.5" wheels was 38mm. For the OEM 17x9.5" wheel, the offset was 56mm. For the rear ZR-1 17x11" wheel, the offset was 36mm. The 17x11 rear wheel for the '96 Grand Sport had a 50mm offset.

You can get aftermarket ZR-1 5-spoke style 17x9.5" wheels with the early C4 offset. As mentioned, AFS and OE Wheels have them and can be found on their ebay stores.

QCVette has a good point about using those C6 wheels and tires! But going with different tire sizes, it keeps you from rotating the tires for longer tread life. Given what the OP mentioned about tire prices (and probably replacement wheels), it sounds like whatever he does will be expensive!

 

Only the C6 Z06/GS fronts will work. They could be used on all four corners for an early C4. They should have the same size tires on all four and could be rotated if desired.

The C6 Z06/GS rear wheels will not work.

 

This is all good information that I've received and I've just realized that I should have been using the Thanks button.
It looks like I'll have to pay close attention to the wheels and tyres on any car that I might buy. Old or worn 255/50-16 tyres will add maybe 600 bucks or more to the price of the car plus the time finding and fitting them.
Later wheels might work but I need to make sure they don't have spacers behind them as I won't be able to use them in Australia. I like all the different styles of wheels except the ones I think are called salad shooters??
Anyway thanks very much to the people who have given me helpful information, I look forward to becoming a Corvette owner.