Salam
@archon2001 db series tires are really great tires. these are noiseless and soft. I also looked to get these when i went to change my car's tires but these were not available in the size I wanted i.e. 195/55. So I settled with A539 which proved to be very nice.
195/60 is a bit bigger than the stock 185/55 and will effect your speedometer reading. I will give a small comparison below:
Tire Size | Tire Sidewall height | speedometer reading (while car's actual speed is 100km/h)
185/55 (stock) | 101.5mm | 100km
195/55 | 107.18mm | 98.1km
195/60 | 116.84mm | 95km
205/50 | 102.36mm | 99.7km
So you can see that 195/60 will show you 95km/h on speedometer while your car would actually be travelling at 100km/h. So be carefull especially on Motorway because at 120 you might actually be going at 128 or 130 and get challan.
Whereas with 195/55 the difference is too little and ignorable, therefore are recommended.
with 205/50 although these tires will look really dashing and will have almost zero effect on speedometer reading but will effect the fuel consumption.
@Retrograde changing the tires to good quality 195/55 will have zero negative and all positive effects i.e. no effect on fuel consumption, braking and handling will remain as good as it is, big improvement in comfort (you will really feel the difference). I remeber that with stock tires I used to feel even small pebels in the road but as the tires were changed all that noise and discomfort vanished. So go for it.
Yes Stock tires i.e. Potenza are a bit hard, if you check the Bridgestone website you will see that these tires are listed under the catagory of performance tires. now performance tires are always hard and thats how they give better handling and cornering at high speed. But in Pakistan, the road condition just doesn't allow us to use these tires and these get quite uncomfortable.
About smoking that 1.8 Civic, well it was manual. My bro was driving it and he is actually a very calm driver and never races or drives rash. Now as we both took off, he pulled away in the first gear but as he pressed the clutch to shift to 2nd, he lagged behind and then never caught up (CVT rules). But I am sure that with a good driver behind Civic's wheel, steermatic might give a bit of challange but stands no chance.
@tech_wiz bro may god help you.
