I have a 2000 XK-8 with 18" wheels.I believe thetire sizes are...front 245/45/18, rear 255/45/18. The car was wearing the tires beutifully even, until I had an alignment and sway bar bushings replaced due to a minor accident. Now the caris eating the insides of the front tires. I had it re-aligned, the shop told methey made only a very slight adjustment and that the only adjustment possible on this car isa toe-in/toe-out adjustment. (???) I hope this solved the problem, but Im not overly confident that itdid.

BUT, my question is this...now that I am in need of new tires... would it make sense to get the same size front and back, either the 245's or255's for both, so that they can be rotated ? I am aware that the rear wheels are actually wider, but the tire shop told me that both size tires would fit both rear and front wheels. I am wondering, has anyone else gone down this road, if so please tell me what youfound out.

JagJoel

 

When I got my 01 XKR it had the 255's on all four corners. Steering was terrible and shakey. Replaced with proper tires(245 front/255 rear) and it drives beautifully now.

 

toe and camber will eat up the inside edges drastically. Had my share of this. Even if you adjust (or in my case, replace parts to fix both, or get them close to spec) the damage to the tires are done, so you won't notice any improvement until you get new tires. sorry...wait it out I suppose.

As for those tires and sizes equal on four corners...well, there has to be some reason why they are staggered in the first place. Putting on directional tires is difficult enough, but throw in staggered widths and now you've got tires that can't be rotated. Its a burden us xk8 owners bear.

 

I am getting new tires, and having another alignment, hope it corrects the problem or my new tires will be toast. The tire shop convinced me that I shoudl get255's all around and have them remounted and rotated (dif size wheels means remounting is required). I wish I had read this before I ordered the tires. Putting BFG g-force somethings on there, they have a non-traditional tread pattern that Im not totally sold on, but they were descently proced for name brand tires.

If this is a disaster, I'll post it. :-)

 

When I re-shoed my 02' XK8...Jag was very specific (I also heard this from a number of other sources) that I stick with 245 on the front and 255 on the rear. I too had thoughts of rotating tires etc.. The car was designed with those tire sizes in mind. I would counsel you listen to the folks who designed our car in lieu of the person trying to sell tires. I did much research on this. BTW I bought Goodyears Eagles and they are wearing line iron after 35,000 miles.

 

Do not put the 255 on the front! The wheels are also different size for front and rear. Go to a different tire shop as obviously that one does not know what they are doing.

 

Well, I already made the decision to go with the 255's when I posted on 11/23. So far they seem to work fine, car seems smooth. I have not really cornered a lot yet. Ill post if it is disasterious.

And I also have some additional information that someone might find helpful, regarding the insides of the tires being chewed up so badly. The tire shop insisted they were setting the toe-in/tow out settings per the factory spec, which they said (if I remember correctly) was -.05 degrees, meaning the tires pointed outward by .05 degress when looking at the front of the car. Since there is no Jag shop for me locally, I insisted that thetire shop consulted a jagdealer to see if they could shed some light on the situation.The shopcontacted a jag dealer shop that isout of state and found that that shophad been setting their toe-in/tow-out settings to 1.0 degrees toe out, NOT to the factory spec. The shop told him that when set to the factory spec they were seeing XK-8's wearing the insides of their tires excessively. Which was exactly what was happing to mine. So, as of today my toe-in/toe out has been set at 1.0 degree in, and hopefully this has corrected my problem.

 

UPDATE - The tire shop adjusted the toe-in to +0.10 degrees, not 1.0. Butthis is different from the recommended factoryspecs.So far my car runs straight as an arrow and smooth as silk. The 255's all around seem to be working out fine.