Larger tires to fill gap without lowering the car? 2022 M3P - Vossens HF-2

[DC813]

As the title says, I want to reuse my Vossen wheels without lowering the car but want larger ties to fill the gap... I'm TERRIBLE with tire size calculations. I had the below setup on my 2020 stealth and had all KINDS of suspension issues when I lowered the car.

Now, I have a 2022 MP3 and I want to put the wheels back on the car without lowering it, but I want to swap out the tires for a little "beefier" tires to fill the gap and without rubbing the front control arms. I did read somewhere on here the largest circumference on a non-lowered MP3 is 27.5. I don't know how accurate that is.

What I have:
Vossen HF-2
20x9 +33
20x10.5 +43

Tires
245-35-20
285-30-20

Can anyone help? I don't want to spend a fortune on new tires, mount the, only to find out they're too large and rub.

 

[gearchruncher]

The largest circumference is really limited by the upright, which doesn't change as you lower the car.
The largest stock tire Tesla sells is 245/35R20, which is 26.8". There's not much clearance to the upright there, so 27.5" sounds reasonable as a max size.

285/30R20 is 26.7" which should be fine. The stock tire is 26.5", so I'm not sure you'll really notice a 0.1" increase in radius as "filling out" the wells.

It appears you're trying to run a non-square setup with those wheels. That makes tire choices a lot harder as you need to keep the front and rear sizes very close, and you have some pretty massively different wheels.

A 255/35R20 front and 295/30R20 would work well as they are both 27.0" diameter and would fit those wheels. You'll take a nasty range hit.

Where was your lowered setup rubbing?

 

[DC813]

The largest circumference is really limited by the upright, which doesn't change as you lower the car.
The largest stock tire Tesla sells is 245/35R20, which is 26.8". There's not much clearance to the upright there, so 27.5" sounds reasonable as a max size.

285/30R20 is 26.7" which should be fine. The stock tire is 26.5", so I'm not sure you'll really notice a 0.1" increase in radius as "filling out" the wells.

It appears you're trying to run a non-square setup with those wheels. That makes tire choices a lot harder as you need to keep the front and rear sizes very close, and you have some pretty massively different wheels.

A 255/35R20 front and 295/30R20 would work well as they are both 27.0" diameter and would fit those wheels. You'll take a nasty range hit.

Where was your lowered setup rubbing?

Thanks for the reply.

I also found those same tire sizes you mentioned (255-35 and 295-30) however, those tire widths are 10" and 11.6", respectively. My concern is my front wheel is only 9" and my rear is 10.5 with his overhang, I feel like I might rub something.

My 2020 was a mess. I did not rub but I had to replace both rear knuckles because the bushings failed. The car made HORRIBLE sounds going over speed bumps and the rain gutter at the end of my driveway. I had Eibach Lowering springs 1" drop with MPP toe and camber arms. The two shops that did all the work for me screwed my car up. When I was driving home from the lowering shop the tires were extra loud (this guy ONLY works on Teslas BTW). When I got home, I noticed the knucklehead put my directional tires on the wrong sides of the car and all 4 tires were rotating the wrong direction. So, while I was swapping them around, I discovered he only finger tightened the lock bolts on the toe and camber arms, so I tightened them with my torque wrench to MPP specs. I read the installation instructions and know the car needs to have full weight on the suspension before tightening the main bolts of the MPP equipment. I mention this because I think this is where my rear knuckles were ruined.... My nephew works at Lambo so I took my car there for a free alignment after all this lowering stuff. Once it was on the alignment machine, the tech was making all of his adjustments but then started tightening all the bolts back in place with his air gun. Then, the tech swings the lift arms under the car to raise it up to check something and thank god I was standing there. He had no idea you have to use jack pads and almost damaged my battery. He started tightening the main arm bolts with his air gun, which, per MPP, should only be tightened when the suspension is supporting the full weight of the car, not in the air on side lift with the wheels hanging freely. The bushings eventually wore out after only 6 months. Cost me $2k to replace them with Tesla before I sold the car for a $18k profit. Now that Elon lowered the price of all the cars, I'm BADLY upside down now in both my 2022 M3P and 2022 MYP. Sorry for the long story you didn't ask for lol

 

[gearchruncher]

It doesn't sound like your previous tire/wheel setup was the cause of any of your woes, and it fit the car. Why not just run it again?

I mean, if you literally have it in your garage just put it on and see how it goes. Then you can look and see where it's close and if a taller or wider tire will fit. A 295 and 255 are only 10mm wider than your current setup, which means 5mm on each side. That's really not much.

Your bigger issue is that tires aren't perfectly sized and there are lots of 285's that are really 300's and vice versa, so it comes down to the exact tires you pick when you start getting really tight.

 

[DC813]

It doesn't sound like your previous setup was the cause of any of your woes, and it fit the car. Why not just run it again?

it deff was not the cause and they fit the car great. The only reason I want larger tire this time is my previous car was lowered and there was still a pretty significant gap. Almost 3 fingers. So, I assume with the new car remaining stock height, I feel like it's going to look like a 4x4 so I wanted larger tires to fill the gap.

 

[fiveangle]

Additional data for all posterity...

27.5" max tire diameter is correct, as originally reported by Apex Race Parts (although they've since removed this info from their model 3 fitment guide )

Larger than that, the top of the tire hits the upper front ball joint mount of the knuckle. That said, I fitted 27.8" diameter 225/55r18 tires to my 3P, but only after grinding the knuckle at the top attachment point. This is with 18x8.5 ET40 stock Aero v1 wheels (of course after grinding the rear calipers down so the 18" Aero's will fit around them).

255/35R20 on 20x9 ET34 (Zero G "Track Pack" wheels) fit without issue (27.3" diameter) as can be seen in my avatar. I'm pretty confident 265/35r20 will also fit up front (although may require ever so light grinding of the knuckle, which would be nothing compared to what I took off to fit the 225/55r18s). I intend to try 265/35r20 on my Zero Gs after these 255s wear out.

215/55r18 on 18x8.5 ET40 (also 27.3") also without any modifications on a stock 3, or after grinding calipers on P3