Wheels and tyre sizes

[shamus1972]

Hi - I've recently bought a Tuscan, fitted with 16" wheels and 225 SO2's all round. When the time comes to buy new tyres (probably Toyo's) I was considering getting wider ones for the back - possibly 245's. Half of me says that I will get a bit more traction, yet the other half of me says 225's were fitted all round for a reason. Will fitting wider tyres affect the hadling (for better or for worse) and will I need a geometry alignment?

I'm also considering maybe getting 18" wheels (blah, blah, tramlining, blah), what tyres would be best?

Finally, where can I get the little gold discs for the middle of the wheels?

Thanks

Shamus

[350matt]

If you fit a 245 tyre to a wheel rim thats not wide enough to strech it slightly, then you'll end up with a balloon effect where the side wall of the tyre flops about on the rim and can lead to it being peeled off in hard cornering. You might get away with it, it all depends on how wide your current wheel is. But I should point out that a streched 225 will outperform a floppy 245 any day of the week.