What's the deal with 13's? Is something wrong with running them, or is it the tire manufacturers just not putting out tires for them that makes them not worth running? I FINALLY found a good set and was planning on running them on my sol but I can hardly find any good tires. What's the deal guys?!?

 

Come on tire gurus.....

 

The deal is that most new compact cars come from the factory with 17+" wheels, and even the subcompacts run at least 15" wheels.

In short, 13" wheels really aren't worth using any more.

I've got one car sitting on a set of 155/80-13 sized tires, which were nearly impossible to find even 5 years ago, and much more so today. The era of small wheels has passed.

Look on the bright side, at least your Del Sol has a very large selection of wheels available. My car uses a 4x95.25 bolt pattern...

 

What the hell bolt pattern is that?!?

 

i don't figure out either

 

4x95.25 = 4x3.75", from the days before metric measurements were common.

The Triumph Spitfire and GT6, the Lotus Elan, and the MGF (and possibly others) all use that pattern. My Spitfire came with 13"x5" 4x3.75" +0.5" (+13mm offset) wheels (and those were the "upgrade" over the previous years 13"x4.5" wheels).

Pretty much, unless I want to get a set of Minilites, I'm going to need to get something custom drilled to fit that car...

 

It's been YEARS since they made any good street tires in 13" sizes.

 

Toyo makes a few in 13", like Proxies for example. Also Toyo has a high tread ware tire called a "Extensa" or something like that and then Kumho makes one and Michelin as well.

 

i ended up having to get mine from sears

 

Toyo's website doesn't list anything smaller than 15" for the Proxes 4 and the Proxes R1R, and nothing smaller than 14" for the Proxes T1R. The R-compound Proxes tires that do come in 13" sizes are not exactly street tires...

The Extensa is a rather crappy tire, is what I currently have in 155/80-13, and helps provide evidence for:
Good, being the operative word there.

 

Well, looks like there going back up for sale then either that or to the scrap yard

 

Too bad you can't get the Yokohama A539's in North America

 

How about these Sumitomo's? http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

 

Even in countries where they sell them, they don't make the A539 in sizes that cars with 13" wheels would need, like 175/70-13 or 185/60-14.

They are cheap and they are available in 13" sizes. Their performance is not very good at all.

 

These actually don't look all that bad.... Whats so bad about them? I know I can't auto-x in them, but other than that whats the issue?

 

They just don't grip very well, compared to other summer tires. But it's your only choice; if you want them, get them.