One of the first mods anyone makes to the NV200 cargo model is to change the tires. But what tire upgrades will fit on this tiny Nissan minivan?
Before we get into that, let me write a bit on WHY so many people change the tires on a brand new vehicle. The NV200 cargo version is really intended for commercial use. The cargo space will hold two 48″ pallets and the van can hold 1,480 lbs…inside. To do that, you have to use a tire with a high weight capacity. After adding in the weight of the vehicle itself at 3,280 lbs, each tire must carry up to 1,190 lbs! This requires a tire with a high load rating (more about that later) which usually means a compromise elsewhere.
The compromises usually mean a high sidewall, limited width, and a poor ride. Because I do not intend to EVER load this vehicle to capacity, I can use a tire that is more suitable for street use or off-road driving. I estimate that with the van outfitted for camping and all my gear loaded, I’ll only be adding about 300 lbs plus my own 250 lbs. That means only 956 lbs on each tire.
“But what size tire will fit the Nissan NV200”?
It’s a question that I get asked more often than any other NV200 question. It also comes up a lot in the NV200 Facebook groups and other forums. Strangely, this question never comes up with my Honda Odyssey conversion, even though everything I’m about to show you can be applied to ANY vehicle. For some reason, swapping tires on the NV200 is a hot topic of discussion and I think I know why… The stock tires on the NV200 suck in every way, save one. Load Index. I’m going to talk about that, but if you just want to know what I’ve used on my NV200, skip down to the “What tires fit on the NV200” section.
The Nissan NV200 cargo van which is produced for the US market has an almost 1500lb cargo carrying capacity. To carry this much weight, you need a tire with a high load-carrying capacity, also known as the “load index”. The extra load capacity is a function of the air pressure and other factors, which limit the selection of available tires. Because the NV200 is such a small van, the selection of tires you can fit in the wheel well is a bit limited. Nissan settled on a 15″ wheel size and 185/60 94/92T R15 tires. That series of numbers is molded into the tire and tells you all about it, assuming you know the code. As you might surmise, the “15” in the tire designation means it’s a 15″ tire. But what do those other numbers mean?
Decoding what the tire numbers mean
In North America (and many other places) tire designations are a blend of metric and imperial measurements, with a ratio thrown in for good measure. Here’s the breakdown of the 185/60 94/92T R15 tire designation:
185–this is the tread width of the tire in millimeters. If you don’t think in mm, then divide 185 by 25.4 to discover that this tire is 7.28 inches wide.
/60– this tells you that the sidewall of the tire is 60% as high as the tread width is wide and is called its “aspect ratio”. If you are someone who is old enough to remember “putting some 60s on your car”, you were referring to the sidewall height. In this archaic case, the goal was to get a wider tire that would still fit in the wheel well, for better traction. In the case of our tire, we can multiply the 185 by .60 (or 60% if you have a fancy calculator), getting a sidewall height of 111 mm or 4.37″. Using this, I can actually get pretty close to the total diameter of this tire. If you look at the tire and held a measuring tape across it, you would actually be measuring two sidewalls for the diameter. So, multiply 4.37 by 2, to get 8.74 inches of sidewall. Now add the diameter of the rim (15″) to get 23.74″. If you want to keep the same rolling diameter and by extension, the same gearing and speedometer reading, you’ll want to try to get close to that number with any other tire you put on.
92/94– the Load Index of the tire, or how much weight EACH tire can carry. This is calculated by the smart people who built your van and takes the weight of the vehicle and the cargo capacity into consideration. It also considers things like weight transfer during cornering and braking. Suffice it to say that this is a fairly complicated equation that I will skip, so you keep reading. Note: the Load Index is usually one number, not two. However, truck tires sometimes carry two ratings because they can be used in a “dually” arrangement, meaning you would have four tires on the rear axle. In the case of the NV200 (and all vans I can think of) the rear axle only carries two tires. So, use the higher number when looking for a replacement.
A disclaimer is in order here. You should NEVER swap to a lower load index than the one specified for your vehicle. The reason I’m doing so is that I will never carry anywhere near the weight that the vehicle was intended for. The advantages in handling and braking, for me, far outweigh the ability to carry a heavy load. So, if you go down this road, you obviously do so at your own risk.
T–the speed rating. This is the top speed that the tire can maintain without flying apart. T means it’s good for 118 miles per hour, which is wildly optimistic for the littlest NV, unless it recently went off a cliff. Even then I’m not sure the aerodynamics would allow for 118 mph. Other ratings include T — Up to 118 mph, H — Up to 130 mph, V — Up to 149 mph, W — Up to 168 mph, Y — over 186 mph. The Y designation is interesting in that it’s not an “up to” rating. I guess they figure that if you are going over 186 mph on street tires, you’re probably going to die anyway. It would be hard to argue that the tire manufacturer was at fault for you driving through a tree at 200 mph. For more on tire speed ratings, see this article.
An overview of tire selection (everything is a compromise)
Tire Tread
Have you ever looked at the rear tires on a dragster or a NASCAR stock car? If not (spoiler alert) they don’t have any tread! That’s because they are racing tires designed for maximum traction under specific conditions. That condition is a dry track. The lack of treads means that the maximum rubber-to-road contact patch can occur. However, if you use these on your minivan, you’ll quickly spin out when it rains. Street tires have grooves AROUND the tire so that they can channel the water out from under the tire. F1 or Formula One racing tires add grooves because those lunatics race in the rain. However, they don’t (yet) race in the snow or the mud. Adding grooves that go ACROSS the tire gives you traction for other conditions. The very tiny grooves that go across the tire are called “sipes” and these aid with adhesion in the snow. There is a LOT more to tire tread design, but those are the basics. Tire manufacturers make the selection of your tire tread a little easier by designating tires as “all-season” or by giving them a snowflake symbol, or the M+S moniker for “mud and snow” (less common these days). Unless you are planning some serious off-roading over rocks and through bogs, you’ll probably want some type of all-season tire. If you drive in the mountains or other snowy conditions, you’ll want to consider a tire rated for cold and snow. Think long and hard about using blocky “off-road” tires on your minivan. The compromises in noise and traction when “on-road” are usually not worth it. If you aren’t sure whether you are going to be “off-road” in any serious way, you aren’t. If you were, you’d already know what to use. There’s plenty of information available for selecting tire tread types, so that’s where I’ll leave it.
Tire Width
A wider tire can vastly improve the braking and cornering grip of your van, all other things being equal. The stock tires are a well-thought-out compromise, but if your driving style is ahem…more aggressive, you might want some wider tires. Wider tires on my Nissan NV200 made it almost enjoyable to drive and definitely improved my confidence on mountain passes.
The wider the better, right? Not necessarily. A wider tire can give better handling and braking in the dry, but it can also aggravate the problem of hydroplaning in the rain, requiring other compromises in the tread pattern. Wider tires are also not great in the snow, where the tire tends to ride on top of the snow rather than digging into it. Ultimately, you are going to be limited by how much room there is between the outer wheel well (fender) and the strut or shock towers and coil springs. Too wide and the tires will rub when you turn the wheel. If you aren’t sure, consult a resource like tirerack.com, discounttire.com, or sullivantire.com, or ask a tire shop. GENERALLY speaking, you can go 15-25% wider without running into problems, but every case is different. Oh, and wider tires can hurt your fuel economy.
Sidewall height
Generally speaking, a shorter sidewall will improve cornering and felt steering response, at the compromise of a rougher ride. It can also limit the load capacity of the tire. If you plan to drive on rough roads or over rocks, a tall sidewall can prevent the tire from compressing to the point that the wheel (rim) hits the rock and gets damaged. You can also “air down” a tire with a high sidewall, to enhance the contact patch for offroad driving.
As we saw above, the sidewall height is related to the width of the tire for a given sidewall ratio. This is why you will see /60, /55, or even /35 on the sidewalls of performance car tires. Fitting a wide tire means that the sidewall will get taller and so, to keep the sidewall height reasonable, a lower aspect ratio tire must be used.
Circumference and Speedometer Error
Generally speaking, you will want to keep the circumference of your wheels similar to stock. The calculator at the end of this post will help you with that. A large group of engineers spent a lot of hours deciding what gear ratios your transmission (a CVT in the NV200’s case) should have to get the best blend of performance. Having said that, most of the tires I’ve used on the NV have been LARGER than stock. Larger diameter tires have the benefit of staying “higher on the rock” when driving off-road. In other words, you don’t get stuck between as many little surface defects. Imagine a tire 100 feet tall, rolling over boulders. That’s a macro exaggeration, but something similar is happening at the micro-level. Big tires also reduce the revs per mile on your engine which can improve your fuel economy, or hurt it, depending on the speed you are driving. With larger tires, my 70 mph economy improved by 1 mpg even after taking the odometer error into account. Larger diameter tires will also reduce the indicated speed on your speedometer. That doesn’t bother me because I simply watched my speed on the Waze app for a while until I got used to making the mental adjustment in my head.
Wheel Sizes
The tire is only part of the story, though. The other part is the wheel (aka, the “rim”). This post is not about wheels, but I think I should give some basics. If you go to a wider tire but still want to keep the sidewall the same height, you may need to go to a larger wheel/rim size. When swapping wheels, you have to know a little more than the diameter to get the right fit. The width of the rim, the size of the center hole (hub), the spacing of the wheel stud holes, and the offset or centerline of the wheel, are all needed pieces of information. If you want to find these dimensions, I suggest you use the wheel size reference in the resources at the end of this post.
What Tires Fit on the NV200?
Oh yeah, that’s what this post is about, right? The short answer is that there are a ton of tires that fit the little Nissan. Because I wanted to get something wider and still keep the sidewall height similar, I first changed my wheels, acquiring some from a base model Nissan Altima. I bought them second-hand for $100 (you can find anything in Detroit, just don’t ask a lot of questions). These rims are an inch larger at 16″ and can carry a tire up to 225 in width. They also have five lugs (US model NV200) and the right offset to keep the fatter tires inside the wheel wells. On this vehicle, I have used the following tires, as seen in the photos above.
215/65 R16–These tires came on the Altima rims (yup, for $100) and I drove on them for 5000 miles, including a lot of offroad. They did not rub at all, but I consider them to be the largest diameter tire you can fit on the Nissan NV200. I should mention that they were also worn and so a tire with all of its tread thickness could MAYBE rub. They were AWESOME offroad and put the van up noticeably higher. Despite the high sidewall, the van handled more confidently and the revs were lowered at highway speed. A quick correction if you follow me on Instagram. I previously stated that these were 205/65 tires when I posted this photo, but they were 215/65s. It’s the only photo I have of these tires, so I’ll post it twice!
205/55 R16–These were the first tires I bought for the Altima rims. They didn’t really improve the looks of the van, being about the same diameter as stock, but the handling was transformed to the point that I seriously considered entering some SCCA parking lot challenges. I probably would have been thrown off of that flat “bucket” seat, LOL! For cornering around the city, this was a really good setup that also worked at highway speeds. Notice that the tread does not have much in the way of snow tread. For off-road and snow, I changed to a third option.
If you are heading offroad or really, anywhere, get one of these tire plug kits and watch my video about how to use one. It will be the best $20 you ever spent, I promise!
215/60 R16–For my trip to Yellowstone National Park, I wanted something that was off-road and capable of handling snowy mountain passes. I also wanted a little stiffer sidewall and a slightly smaller rolling diameter than the 215/65s. Those tires never rubbed, but they didn’t leave a lot of space either. I think the 215/60 R16 is the best size for off-road work in the NV200, without breaking the piggy bank with expensive rims. These tires were rated for heavy snow and also did well in the mud. They even got me farther up Shadow Mountain across from Grand Teton, than most of the small Jeeps that day (the tiny passenger ones, not “real” jeeps). These tires raised the van over an inch, giving some wanted ground clearance. They also carry a HIGHER load index than the stock tires (95 vs 94).
Tire Resources
If you live and breathe tires, you’ll be able to do some quick mental math to see what fits on your van. For the rest of us, there is the calculator. Better yet, there are specific calculators that make quick work of the decision process. Here are some useful calculators and a load index chart to aid in your search (see how hard I work for you guys?!).
I hope this post helps you to find a tire and wheel combination that you like on your Nissan NV200, or whatever you are driving on your adventure. If you want to see more of my Nissan NV200 Campervan conversion, check out my seven-part series on YouTube.
–Darren at Odyssey Camper