I'm a newbie at tires sizes but heres the problem:

A friend and I traded wheels and my tires ended up to be wider. The tires started scraping on the control arm in the rear. Now what i'm wondering is I have a set of 225/45/17 tires laying around. Would these tires fit rims that have 245/45/17s mounted on em?

 

They might if the 245's were big time overkill for them rim figure out the width of the rim.

 

anyone?

 

Whoa, you got 245's in the rear? That's pretty crazy. NO wonder your scraping the control arm in the rear. You should give your local tire shop a call, I'm pretty sure they'll have an anwer for you.

 

To determine if wheels fit a particular car you need the following dimensions:

diameter
width
AND
offset

 

Of course the 225's will fit on the rims, after all they are both 17"!
Whether that will fix your rub problem is another matter, though going to the narrower tire will definately help.

The other/next thing to consider if the offset of the wheel(s) in question!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Lost Type R &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">A friend and I traded wheels and my tires ended up to be wider. The tires started scraping on the control arm in the rear. Now what i'm wondering is I have a set of 225/45/17 tires laying around. Would these tires fit rims that have 245/45/17s mounted on em?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Maybe, maybe not.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by zygspeed &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Of course the 225's will fit on the rims, after all they are both 17"!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not necessarily.

Whether tires will fit on wheels depends on the diameter and width of the wheel. Every tire model and size has a range of approved rim widths, which you can look up on the tire manufacturer's website and/or on the Tire Rack website. You can look up that particular size for that model tire, and see if the width of the rim is approved for it. Even if it's approved, if the width is at the low end of the range, the tire might look stretched, and at the upper end, might bulge out a lot - but at least it should be able to be mounted.

However, even if you can mount the tire on that wheel, that doesn't mean that they will fit on the car without rubbing - which is what you found out. 225/45-17 tires are way too big for the ITR. They will rub like the dickens. They add weight. They are 6.5 percent larger in outer diameter than stock, and that will hurt acceleration (same principle as getting a taller final drive gear). Definitely not recommended.