I need to replace my tires on my 91 civic hatchback. I have 165/80/13 on it now, unfortunately no one seems to sell those anymore and I live in Brooklyn! Should I special order those or go with the 185/70/13 that the folks at Pep Boys have in stock? Any suggestions on who would have 165/80/13 or which brand to get, it seems crazy that I can?t get them.
The problem is that newer cars use wider, lower profile tires on bigger wheels. TireRack, a large mail order dealer, doesn’t list any 165/80-13 tires.
According to one of the on line tire size calculators, 185/70-13 tires are less than 1% larger in diameter than your old tires. Pep Boys appears to be giving you good advice.
Give a call to Honda Corp, regional office, and ask for tech assistance. Someone there will provide you with a list of alternate tire sizes recommended by Honda. Have your VIN handy and they will also provide you with additional information such as recalls, if any.
BTW, congratulations for keeping your little hatchback on the road. It’s a great Canarsie car.
My brother has an old Subaru Justy with the same problem.
Anyway, the easiest way to look at this is to convert to us units:
165/80R13 = 23.4in diameter x 6.5in wide
185/70R13 = 23.2in diameter x 7.3in wide
The difference in diameter in negligible, and the extra 0.8in of width will not be a problem either.