90 wheels tyres & spacers

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Cadno

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Pembs
Hi, a couple of questions, I’m looking to put some new at tyres on the Landy 96 300tdi,
What are the best all round size to get?
Economy/ handling etc?
Also spacers, any pros and cons?
I’m just looking to improve the aesthetics a little, but don’t want to compromise anything! Thanks in advance!
 
No to spacers, banned in many countries for good reason. Tyres - it depends on how you use it and what driving you do. Bigger tyres mostly better off road and worse on so look at where you spend you time.
 
No to spacers, banned in many countries for good reason. Tyres - it depends on how you use it and what driving you do. Bigger tyres mostly better off road and worse on so look at where you spend you time.
What countries are spacers banned in?
 
Hi, a couple of questions, I’m looking to put some new at tyres on the Landy 96 300tdi,
What are the best all round size to get?
Economy/ handling etc?
Also spacers, any pros and cons?
I’m just looking to improve the aesthetics a little, but don’t want to compromise anything! Thanks in advance!
Need more info really, there is a lot of choice out there.

There have been several standard fit tyres over the years.

235/85R16 probably the most common. Good choice of treads and the do the job well.

265/75R16 is about the same height but fatter and fitted on some USA/ROW models. Usually less lock with standard rims. But a valid choice. Probably less good off road on most UK terrain, as narrower tyres tend to work better most places.

7.50 x 16 is a nice size, same height again there abouts, but should be narrower. Somewhat different look, but can look great IMO.

205 x 16 is a short tyre. Often look a bit small, but for road use will probably be better in many ways in terms of handling and acceleration. Although they will reduce your overall gearing.

31.10.15R15 used in the USA markets. Bit shorter but fatter. Can look very good, but you'll def need new rims as stock rims are 16"

Other sizes:

255/85R16 these are tall and fit well without mods. Might need to adjust steering stops a bit. But limited choice of tyres in this size.

285/75R16 not quite as tall as the 255 but taller than a 235. But they are fat by comparison. Will give a bit of a mini monster truck look. But will give less lock (rub the radius arms) unless you run deeper offset rims. But then you run the risk of them sticking outside the arches, which is illegal in the UK (Construction & Use Regs, not the MoT!!!). You might also get more bump steer with these and less precise handling and a bit of a performance blunt. But there are pros to big tyres sometimes.

There are then some variation on 33.10.50 in 15 or 16" rims. 33.11.50 and even 33.12.50R15. The latter being very fat and wide. The 255/85 still slightly taller. A 12.50 section would be more akin to a 305 width.

As a rule wider tyres will produce more drag and blunt performance and mpg, usually with handling penalties. But might offer more on road grip.

Anything 285 or bigger may rub the wheel spats and other parts too.

Anything bigger than a 235 is more likely to break axle/diff parts.

Anything bigger than a 33" tall will likely require supporting mods.

As for rims. Loads of choice. I personally like the "Land Rover" look of steel rims. Something like the One Ton/2B/130/Wolf but I'm also partial to some 8 spoke steels. But there are others such as Mach 5s and the like. Again personally, not usually keen on alloys, not unless it is modern looking metallic tidy 90. and even then I'd probably still prefer some black steel rims.

Lots of rim widths and offsets. You'll need to match these with the tyres, then to how much you want the wheels to stick out or not.

IMO - spacers are 100% fine. They do exactly the same thing a deep offset rim does. You just need to understand what they are. Alloys need hubcentric spacers, steel rims do not and sometimes won't fit a hubcentric one.


There are other bigger alloys such as 18" or use of adaptor spacers to run p38/D2 rims. Mostly these just make a Land Rover ride worse however. The same total dimensions of the tyres are available in most sizes, you just change profile of the tyre. Trade rubber for rim. Although if you want a narrow look tyre, these are not available in above 16" sizes.

Tyres - depends on if you go off road or not and how road biased you are after.
 
I’ve got 235/85R16 on my 90 and they are the right size, in my opinion. As said above, lots of options available. If you go wider than the wheel arches, you will likely need to change these too.

Wheel spacers will increase wear on the wheel bearings.
 
What countries are spacers banned in?
Germany for a start. I had a retired garage owner from Germany stay a while ago, he couldn't believe we allowed spacers, he kept going on about it. I have a feeling they may not allow them in France but I may have confused that with towing dollys. As a rule if its a country that signs up toe EU type approval my bet is they are out. They move the load on the bearings outside the design envelope, in the UK we allow that (and I'm OK with that) but many countries do not without type testing and I'll bet most wheel spacers are not type tested. Bear in mind the big money is on selling wheels so why get approval for spacers to sell to poor people when you can sell wheel sets to people who can afford to mod their vehicles?
The biggest problem with spacers is none of that, its the fact that they announce to the world that you can't afford the wheels. Wheel spacers are the car equivalent of a plastic leather jacket.
 
Pretty sure wheel spacers are perfectly legal in Germany, they just need to be TUV approved. Which is something entirely different to saying they aren't legal.
Wheel spacers are also sold and used all across the EU.

As for moving the load out, completely depends on what you are doing. But they do nothing that different offset rims do in this regard. And can be used to correct offset back to standard too in some applications.

Not to mention wheel spacers have been used for decades by 1000s and 1000s of people. Yet there is nothing more than myth and urban legend to back up any claims that you shouldn't use them.
 
Interesting, I went on UK e-bay and searched "wheel spacers" and then on e-bay.de and searched "spurverbreiterrungen" and about the same number came up so thign have moved on since my conversion with my German friend. However the German e-bay gave me a warning to check correct fitment which the UK one did not. I did notice that there was a pattern to the type of vehicles people want to fit spacers too and that the price point said a lot about the intended buyers. I'm now even more sure wheel spacers are the automotive vinyl leather jacket, as soon as they can afford the real thing they get rid of them. Both sell in many 1000s.
 
If you don't want to compromise anything then stick with stock. At the end of the day the entire car is a compromise
Spacers will put extra load on the bearings, so they might wear out a bit quicker
 
Interesting, I went on UK e-bay and searched "wheel spacers" and then on e-bay.de and searched "spurverbreiterrungen" and about the same number came up so thign have moved on since my conversion with my German friend. However the German e-bay gave me a warning to check correct fitment which the UK one did not. I did notice that there was a pattern to the type of vehicles people want to fit spacers too and that the price point said a lot about the intended buyers. I'm now even more sure wheel spacers are the automotive vinyl leather jacket, as soon as they can afford the real thing they get rid of them. Both sell in many 1000s.
Not sure why you are obsessed with price. Spacers use a lot less material. Have a lower quality of finish and far less intricate design. Of course they’ll cost less than a set of alloys.

And has sod all to do with who they are aimed at.
 
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