Tires: the meaning of tire sizes, tire sizing, tirerack com

Question
If i put a 215  tire on a car that has 3 205 tires, would that be a problem for the car? What does the numbers on the tires stand for? If a tire has a slash in where you can pull the rubber up but it didn't go all the way through the wall of the tire, is that tire unsafe?

Answer
Sheneda,

Read up on tire sizing at this web site:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/tiretech.jsp

They explain it better than I could.

Once we've read that, you'll know that the different numbers have meaning and that having different diameter tires would not be a good thing.  What happens is that the vehicle can become unstable during handling manuevers, especially in emergency situations - just when you'd want the vehivle to be predictable.

And the cut in the sidewall?  If you see something other than rubber, it's unsafe.