Ok, I have a 2 finger gap between my tire and fender as of now. I want no gap. Right now, I'm running a 195/50 on the stock 15's. My question is, if I were to run a 55 sidewall instead of a 50, would that be enough additional tire to compensate for the 2 finger gap? or if i were to run a 45 on a 16'' wheel, would that do it?

here is a pic of the wheel gap the day i lowered the car:


it's a very small amount lower now that it's settled for like 4 months.


common sense would say that the additional tire would delete the gap. the reason i ask is because i don't know how big of a jump it is from a 50 to a 55.

EDIT: if the numbers on tires are millimeters, the 5 mm is definitely not going to fill that gap. maybe 10 mm, or maybe even 15 more millimeters.

i'd appreciate any verification on the fact that the numbers on tires are millimeters...

 

a 195/60 will give you 3/4 of an inch more sidewall then you have now.

BTW, use a tire calculator like this one and you can play around with sizes and get exaclty what you want...

http://www.dakota-truck.net/TIRECALC/tirecalc.html

 

A 5% increase (50 aspect ratio to a 55) isn't going to be much. I think it would still look better if you swapped wheels and went with a 45, but you'd still have some wheel gap. You already lowered your Civic didn't you?

 

If you go with a 205/50/15 you'll get more sidewall as well as a little more width. You still wouldn't fill fnders completely but it'd probably be enough to make you happy. You could also try a 205/55/15 and get even more sidewall but you may not be happy with that look.

 

Lower your car more.

Anything over a 50 series tire looks awful, and it'd look better as it sits now with the gap, rather than with a monster truck profile.

 

thanks for everyone's responses.

lowering the car more is not an option, as it is already lowered and it would be a waste to get rid of the springs that are on there. that's why i'm looking for another way to eliminate just a little bit more of the remaining wheel gap. it is actually A LOT lower than a stock 7th gen civic, if you were to compare my car with one...
either way, i appreciate all the input because i have little to no knowledge on tire sizing. all i know is that the first number is width, the 2nd is sidewall, and the 3rd is rim size.

unfortunately, a bigger wheel will not be an option for a long while, which is what i'd like to do.

 

The second number (the sidewall height) is also proportional to the width of the tire..
example.
205/50/16 = smaller sidewall
215/50/16 = larger sidewall

 

i did not know this.

i should have gotten a 205/50 instead of a 195/50

 

Yup, the second number of a tire size is called the aspect ratio. It's the percentage (in millimeters) of the width of the tire which is also how tall the sidewall is.