Tyre advice please for 17" rims

[Tony x]

Hello,
Our 4wd Bongo will need new tyres soon.
It has 17" rims and 225/50r17 tyres on it.
Has anyone advice on a tyre which is generally ok but better than most when off road?
I don't really want to go above 225/55r17's as I don't want to alter the gearing too much. However, the dual purpose or all terrain tyres I've looked at all have, as you might expect, a higher profile of 65+...ie 225/65r17
We don't have the original steel wheels and I'd like to avoid the solution of getting some of these and fitting high profile tyres.

One of the reasons we bought a 4wd Bongo and sold our 2wd Bongo is due to getting stuck in the mud a number of times.
I'm not bothered about the off road performance as such, handling and the like - I just don't want to get stuck.

My 10 year old son does motocross. Hence we tend to do long motorway journeys, a few country lanes and the inevitable rough and muddy field at the end of it. It's a standing joke amongst many motocrossers that the most challenging part of the track is not the jumps, whoops or whatever, it's getting your van out of the venue and back on solid roads at the end of the day.

[Jim the Box]

I Don't have a 4wd bongo myself but have seen them at music festivals in really wet weather cruising thru really muddy conditions no probs, and witnessed many other vehicles having to be towed thru the same strip of land, just fit a good set of winter tyres, with bongo's being mid engined you will be really surprised what a bongo will go thru, certainly I was.

[phil 1]

Hi 225/55/17 4x4 suv tyres hope it helps

http://www.camskill.co.uk/m56b0s222p0/S ... 225_55R177 4x4 suv tyres

[Tony x]

Hi 225/55/17 4x4 suv tyres hope it helps

http://www.camskill.co.uk/m56b0s222p0/S ... 225_55R177 4x4 suv tyres

Yes, it does...Thanks

[Tony x]

For info:-
Decided to go with Nankang 225/55 R17 SP5
They get good reviews and are made for 4X4s
They also have a huge load rating of 101 which is 825kg so I'm hoping that will make them tough when negotiating rocks.
I'll up the 15" spare to 215/70 which is 0.4% bigger than the Nankangs, a smaller difference than between the original tyres of 195/70 R15 and 215/65R15 that Mazda fit. I'll try to get a part worn spare cheap.

If I still had 15" rims, then Cooper (big American company who specialize in off road tyres and who own Avon - that's Avon tyres, not the cosmetics...) 205/70 ATS fitted all round would have been very tempting. They're 60% road, 40% off road say Cooper and I suspect would have made the Bongo awesome in the mud. Load rating is just ok at 96 (which I think is 730kg)

If I was sticking with the 250/50R17 which match the rolling circumference of the original 15" Mazda tyres almost exactly, then the Nokian Zline would have been my first choice with the Cooper zeon CS6 the budget option. Neither are especially made for 4X4s and neither that special off road.

Of course, there's loads of other options, this is just the results of my looking into tyres

[Colin H F]

ha ha you must have clicked submit 3 times you can delete 2 posts

[Tony x]

ha ha you must have clicked submit 3 times you can delete 2 posts

Errr....yes, it was entirely my computers fault of course.