2018 Stinger Tire Replacement

[rajiv nair]

Hey,

I was looking to replace my original tires on my 2018 GT2 AWD Stinger. I was wondering if the Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus would be the best option for all season being in NY? Also what size should I be getting if I wanted to get the 18" and not staggered? Would this be the size I get for front and back:

• Size: 225/45ZR18
• Style: Blackwall
• Serv. Desc: 91Y

Thanks!

 

[MerlintheMad]

(Late howdy: you've been signed up for a while )

Is there some reason why you want a taller tire than OEM? (225/40) You're already going with a "Y" speed rating: so I don't think that different brand "Y" rated tires are going to differ much in performance. My Nitto Motivo A/S UHP (Y) are very satisfying and have one of the highest treadlife warranties out there.

 

[rajiv nair]

(Late howdy: you've been signed up for a while )

Is there some reason why you want a taller tire than OEM? (225/40) You're already going with a "Y" speed rating: so I don't think that different brand "Y" rated tires are going to differ much in performance. My Nitto Motivo A/S UHP (Y) are very satisfying and have one of the highest treadlife warranties out there.

My original tires from the dealer were 225/45R18 95V Potenza. I don’t know much about tires, so I’m not sure what the Y and V characters are? Should I be getting 225/40 or 225/45 or does it not matter?

 

[rajiv nair]

(Late howdy: you've been signed up for a while )

Also thank you, I bought some of the stinger badges when I first got the car. Never posted in the forum, don’t have much to contribute

 

[Guzman]

Those look to be the right specs for the tires. OEM 18" whether it was base or the GT AWD in some markets was 225/45/18. Y is the load rating.

 

[StingertimeNC]

We have those tires on our GTI. great tire! I would recommend them to anyone for all season.

 

[rajiv nair]

Those look to be the right specs for the tires. OEM 18" whether it was base or the GT AWD in some markets was 225/45/18. Y is the load rating.

Does the 95V on my original tires vs the 91Y on the Continental tires make a difference? I read that its the amount of load each tire can handle but not sure what the stinger load rating is, if there is a range or not?

 

[Guzman]

oops...my mistake, brain fart. The 95 is the load rating, the V/Y is the speed rating. I am thinking that the 95 is the number that has to match or greater since it is related to the weight of the vehicle. The V or Y is the maximum speed the tire is rated for. Realistically, unless you plan on attaining those speeds V is rated at 149 mph and Y is rated at 168 mph. Some tire shops are really picky about only installing tires that match the door plate so you may need to match both, but again, the load rating is probably more important to match.

 

[MerlintheMad]

My original tires from the dealer were 225/45R18 95V Potenza. I don’t know much about tires, so I’m not sure what the Y and V characters are? Should I be getting 225/40 or 225/45 or does it not matter?

Oh, yeah. I didn't figure in the 18" wheel. Of course a taller sidewall would be needed to get the same OD. "V" is speed rated up to 149 MPH; "Y" is 186+ MPH. So, the OE Potenza limits your Stinger to c. 140 MPH (in case you didn't already know that): a "Y" is overkill in any case, since the top limited speed (for the 19" wheels with Michelin PS4) is "only" 167 MPH.

 

[rajiv nair]

oops...my mistake, brain fart. The 95 is the load rating, the V/Y is the speed rating. I am thinking that the 95 is the number that has to match or greater since it is related to the weight of the vehicle. The V or Y is the maximum speed the tire is rated for. Realistically, unless you plan on attaining those speeds V is rated at 149 mph and Y is rated at 168 mph. Some tire shops are really picky about only installing tires that match the door plate so you may need to match both, but again, the load rating is probably more important to match.

Thank you for the information! The speed rating now I know wont matter to me. Still need to confirm the load rating numbers now!

 

[rajiv nair]

Oh, yeah. I didn't figure in the 18" wheel. Of course a taller sidewall would be needed to get the same OD. "V" is speed rated up to 149 MPH; "Y" is 186+ MPH. So, the OE Potenza limits your Stinger to c. 140 MPH (in case you didn't already know that): a "Y" is overkill in any case, since the top limited speed (for the 19" wheels with Michelin PS4) is "only" 167 MPH.

Would you be able to tell me if the load rating matters for the Stinger? is there a range of acceptable numbers like 90-95 or only one specific number? I just want to make sure I am buying the right size tires. The Continental site shows the 225/45 as a 91 while my OEM tires are 225/45 at a 95.

 

[MerlintheMad]

Would you be able to tell me if the load rating matters for the Stinger?

"Matters" means what? No high performance tire (V is a high performance rating, just not "ultra high" performance) is going to have an inadequate load rating. You're not planning on tracking this tire, so loading up a tire carving curves, long enough to overheat it, will not come up.

 

[Guzman]

I am pretty sure the manual and door card say a load rating of 95, so that is the number I would get to be sure from a safety perspective. On the continental site, the only all season tires that have a load rating of 95 are the ContiProContact.

 

[Coldbread]

If you want to get rid of the stagger setup, the first question is what width of a tire do you want? You aren't actually limited to 225, you can have 255 in the front and rear if you want. The rear is probably a 255/40 and the front is 225/45 assuming you have 18" wheels. I was planning on getting the Michelin all season 4's with 255's all around, mainly because it's easier to maintain than a stagger setup. I'm not sure if you found any more information about what the numbers mean but I'll just explain it.

The reason the width is important is because that determines the size of the sidewall using the second number. For example the sidewall on a 255/45 will be larger than the sidewall on a 225/45. The second number is telling you the sidewall size based on the ratio of the width of the tire. So the sidewall for both those example is 45%; but 45% of 255 is larger than 45% of 225. Once you figure out the width you can figure out which tire you need to get.

Like everyone said above, the letter after the load rating determines the speed the tire is rated for. The only thing to add is that your car is capable of 167mph but it will be electronically limited to 147mph or so (Not sure of the exact number Kia limited it to). The reason is the OEM cannot allow the car to go faster than what the tire that came with the car is rated for. That would be asking for a lot of lawsuits when tires start ripping off the cars.

Now more information with the load limit (The number before the letter). The load limit only really tells you how much PSI you should be inflating your tires to and the load capacity of the tire. I recommend not getting tires with a lower load rating than the original tires. There is a table out there where you can cross reference load rating and what the OEM recommends you should inflate to. There you can see what the load capacity is for each tire, which will help you determine how much PSI you need for different load limits. This is also really useful if you plan on changing the size of the wheel.
Now with all that, there is actually a cool calculator out there that will automatically tell you how much PSI you should have in your new setup using your original setup as reference. You can plug in the numbers with your setup and see that the load capacity of the OEM 95 load rated tire is 1442 lbs based on the 38 PSI they tell you to put in it. The new tire with the 91 load rating has a max load capacity of 1389 lbs which wouldn't be good since it's lower than the OEM.

I found the two websites below to be a really useful source if you want to make changes to your setup. Just need to figure out how to use them properly.

To calculate tire pressure change.

Tire Pressure Calculator

Easy to use tire pressure calculator. Use our tire pressure calculator to calculate the new tire pressure needed when changing tire sizes.

tiresize.com

To calculate differences when you change the tire/wheel size.

Custom rims, wheel tire packages

Custom rims, wheel tire packages. Browse hundreds custom aftermarket rim-tire packages for your car, truck or SUV. Online fitment guides - See what fits.

www.rimsntires.com

 

[LafyaAbu]

Reviving an older thread I stumbled upon, as I am looking at replacing my tires.

Regarding the load index, my GT-Line came with 225/45 R18 95V tires. If I look at TireRack, they'll list only 95 load index, when I search by make/model. A local shop told me they will not install less than 95.

However, my trim is the lightest of all trims, and when I look at the manual it has a table which says that on other OEM wheels, available in heavier trims, the tire is 225/40 R19 93W. Since the load rating is in units of lb that the tire can safely carry, it is obvious that a lighter trim definitely does not need a higher load index rating. Perhaps Kia has simply put the arbitrary tire they picked at this table, and that 95 is not the minimum load index rating.

Furthermore, there's a common rule of thumb to select load index by dividing the total gross weight of the vehicle (GVWR) by 4, as there are 4 tires, and then use a table to find the load index rating. Even better, the door jamb has the GVWR and GAWR (A=axle) for the front and rear axels. The rear one is the larger value at 2712 lb, or 1356 lb per tire. Using a table from TireRack it seems that this corresponds to load index of 91.
This convinced me that a load index 91 is a safe choice for the GT-Line RWD. Similarly, the GT-Line AWD and the 3.3T RWD will be 93 and 3.3T AWD will be 94.

BTW, I was also considering the Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 or the BridgeStone Potenza RE980AS+, both a 91W tires. In fact, I'd prefer them over the alternatives of 95 in both price and performance.
I can get TireRack to ship it, but I am not sure a local shop will agree to install them, as they are below 95.

What do you guys think?

 

[JSolo]

I replaced the stock garbage within 2 weeks of getting the car (2 years ago). Running the size in my sig on all 4 corners on stock wheels. No clearance issues. Next time around I may go with a 45 profile tire, we'll see what kind of life I get out of the current ones (11,xxx miles on the odo now, new tires installed at 450 miles). The pilot sport as4 in this size is rated at 97Y (1609lb, 186mph). Overkill sure, but far superior tire to the stock re97as-02.

$187 vs $202 for the 225/45/18 vs 245/40/18 dws 06 tire; $60 difference for the set. I'm guessing your driving style is not as aggressive as mine. I like to take curves/corners fast. The stock bridgestone tire was extremely confidence non-inspiring in such scenarios which I why I got rid of them so soon. Can't comment on rain/snow performance as I didn't get that far in testing.

It seems over the last 2 decades, between cars and bikes, I've stuck with michelin tires with excellent results (michelin pilot road series on the bikes, and pilot supersport, pilot sport as3, pilot sport as4 on the g37, accord, and stinger, respectively). Price is higher, but the performance is there. PSS were shot after ~20K on the g37, but that's expected (staggered too). Can't comment on the accord as we got rid of the car ~10K after getting those tires installed.

 

[LafyaAbu]

The TL-DR of what I said is that Kia's recommended tire load index can't be the minimum safe load index, because it can't be right that the heavier trim with the 225/40 R19 wheels needs a smaller load index of 93 vs. the lighter GT-Line trim that somehow needs a 95.

By messing up the recommendation, Kia deprived us from legitimate safe tire options, with possibly a better price / performance profile, though surely restricted our tire selection.

 

[JSolo]

^^I can't remember which magazine published the actual numbers, or for which specific model (2.x/3.3), but the numbers were not equal per wheel. That is, different corners of the car were subject to different static (while stationary) weights.

I suspect a number of shops will install tires of your choice regardless of spec if you pay cash with no bill of sale.

I'm confident the load index of the re97as-02 was not a primary factor in kia choosing said tire. Minimal acceptable performance vs price likely was.

 

[Volfy]

Within 2 miles of where I work, there are no fewer than 3-4 independent tire shops that will mount & balance any tire I bring them for $25 cash/wheel. They could care less what size/specs, as long as the tire fits the rim, and they can bolt the wheel on their balancer.

OTOH, the chain stores like Firestone and Discount Tires are a lot more anal about it. I get the feeling they are so busy selling tires they just don't much care to mess with pesky M&B jobs with tires you bring in.

Anyhow, if load rating of 225/45R18 is a problem, why not just bump it up a size (load rating goes up too). I run 235/45R18 on my street set. On public roads and over a wide variety of pavement conditions, I much prefer having a bit more protection with slightly taller sidewall and the plusher ride.