Mounting Regular Tires on Donut Wheels?
 

I know there's quite a few people here who enjoy skinnier tires for better mileage.

I have a few reasons I'd like to get Donuts for my Focus.

First is I want a set of steel wheels for the car for winter. I'm only able to find alloys in the junkyard. Would much prefer steel wheels for winter. My winter tires are 185 65 15 ... would a donut be too narrow for them?

The next question is I am toying with the idea of buying a set of donut rims and some 155 80 15 tires when the current set of tires wears out.

Do donut wheels have two beads ... can regular tires be mounted on donut rims?

Edit: I think I asked this before

Tire rack or any number of online sites tell what range of rim widths works with any particular tire size.

The manufacturer gives car models certain tire and wheel sizes based on many factors, and some of that is safety. I would be worried about running a tire that is too skinny because of the decreased braking and handling characteristics of the car with that setup. Especially if its a bigger car. To me risking the safety of the car is not worth the small MPG gain you would get from going to such skinny tires.

And with whatever size you choose, make sure to figure out how much it will be affecting your speedo. Especially with the 155 tire.

185 isn't too skinny. 155 might be, depending on the weight of the vehicle. Better make sure that whatever gets used has an appropriate load rating.

185 is plenty wide. 155 would fit a 5" or 5.5" wide wheel, as I have been running that size tire on both those wheels widths, albeit in the 13" variety, for years. I'm not sure how wide your donut is but it might be worth just buying a set of steelies off Craigslist. Find out your lug pattern and do some searching.

4thoughts:

First, donut wheels, are narrow AND they are built of thinner gauge material. That means they aren't desiogned to last 10's of thousands of miles - only what they claim - 50 miles at 50 mph.

Second, if you mount a tire on a rim that is too narrow, then the tread will arch and not only will the tire wear in the middle, it will tend to follow the ruts and grooves in the road and be sensitive to cross winds.

Third, narow tires don't save fuel. Tires with bigger load carrying capacity do. But the effect is small. Besides, going DOWN in load carrying capacity is unsafe - tires fail more often.

And last, you should spend your time researching low rolling resistance tires, Much more gains to be found there.