ATV Tire Sizing
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How to tell the size of ATV tires
When you’re ready to buy new ATV tires, you’ll need to know your tire size.
First you need to know if you’re reading a traditional or standard tire size or a metric tire size.
How to understand standard and traditional tire sizing for ATV tires
For traditional tire sizes, your numbers will look something like this: 25x8-12.
25 is the overall height of the tire when it’s mounted and inflated to the recommended amount of air pressure. This means this particular tire is 25 inches tall.
8 is the overall width of the tire when it’s mounted and inflated to the same recommended level of air pressure. This means this particular tire is 8 inches wide.
12 is the diameter of the wheel that the tire will mount to. For this example, this tire will mount to a 12-inch diameter wheel.
How to understand metric tire sizing for ATV tires
For metric tire sizing, your numbers will look something like this: 205/80R12.
205 is the width of the tire in millimeters when it’s mounted and inflated to the recommended level of air pressure. For this tire, it’s 205 millimeters wide. You divide this number by 25.4 to convert it to inches (in case you need to know the ATV tire’s size in standard sizing). You get 8.07 which rounds to 8.
80 is the aspect ratio (of the sidewall height) to the width of the tire when mounted and inflated to the recommended air pressure. This means this particular tire’s sidewall height is 80% of 205 millimeters, which comes to 164. To convert the sidewall height to an overall diameter (like that used in standard sizing), you have to multiply by 2 and then divide by 25.4 to get your number in inches. That comes to 12.913, which you add to the wheel’s diameter (12 for this example as you’ll see below). The result is 24.913 inches which rounds to 25.
R is an indicator that the tire uses radial construction.
12 is the diameter of the wheel that the tire will mount to. For this example, this tire will mount to a 12-inch diameter wheel.
Get the tire size right
It’s very important that you get the right sizes when you purchase ATV tires and wheels. If you have a current set of ATV tires and get a set of wheels that are the wrong diameter, your current ATV tires won’t fit. The same for your tires. You have to make sure you’re reading the size correctly so you get what you want and need.
This is especially true if you’re buying used ATV tires or wheels. Most of the time, you can’t return used tires and wheels if you happen to buy the wrong size.