As others have noted here in complaints regarding premature tire wear, Nissan has made the terrible decision to equip this vehicle with a unique OEM tire available only through Nissan dealers. Their tire carries a load rating of 94 (1,477 pounds) to ensure safe operation at rated cargo capacity, whereas most tires of this otherwise common 185/60R15 tire size have a rating of 84 (1,102 pounds). There is not a single aftermarket tire in this size that has a sufficiently high rating!
Do you want to buy a tire for less than the exorbitant price charged by Missan "stealerships?" Do you want to buy a tire have better wear or performance characteristics? Do you want snow tires to deal with winter weather? You're out of luck. Your only options are: using a overloaded tire (risking blowout and, um, death); stepping up to a larger tire (risking mechanical interference and speedometer errors); replacing your NV200 with a different vehicle (the Ford Transit Connect suddenly looks to be worth the price premium).
I wish I had known this before buying my NV, which has otherwise been great during my brief ownership.
Update from Mar 19, 2015: Needing snow tires here in the Northeast, I had no choice but to switch to a larger tire size. After careful research, I settled on 195/65R15, which is a little wider and a little taller than the original factory size. Michelin's X-Ice snow tire is available with a 95 load rating in this size, which I had mounted on the original wheels, and which work great ($93 each from Tirerack.com). The slight increase in size still leaves plenty of clearance to fenders and suspension components. In theory, this results in a speedometer error of about 5% (with 65mph indicated, vehicle is traveling a little about 68), but in practice this is a not an issue.
Another size with many choices of tire for the factory 15" wheel is 205/65R15. This should still fit without clearance issues (though hasn't been verified), and results in a speedometer error of about 7%.
Finally, another gentleman here suggested going up to the larger 16" wheel from the Nissan Rogue, and fitting it with 205/55R16 tires (another popular size), which he said worked without any issues, and which results in a speedometer error of about 5%. I may do this for my summer tires, keeping my snows on the original wheels.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
As others have noted here in complaints regarding premature tire wear, Nissan has made the terrible decision to equip this vehicle with a unique OEM tire available only through Nissan dealers. Their tire carries a load rating of 94 (1,477 pounds) to ensure safe operation at rated cargo capacity, whereas most tires of this otherwise common 185/60R15 tire size have a rating of 84 (1,102 pounds). There is not a single aftermarket tire in this size that has a sufficiently high rating!
Do you want to buy a tire for less than the exorbitant price charged by Missan "stealerships?" Do you want to buy a tire have better wear or performance characteristics? Do you want snow tires to deal with winter weather? You're out of luck. Your only options are: using a overloaded tire (risking blowout and, um, death); stepping up to a larger tire (risking mechanical interference and speedometer errors); replacing your NV200 with a different vehicle (the Ford Transit Connect suddenly looks to be worth the price premium).
I wish I had known this before buying my NV, which has otherwise been great during my brief ownership.
Update from Mar 19, 2015: Needing snow tires here in the Northeast, I had no choice but to switch to a larger tire size. After careful research, I settled on 195/65R15, which is a little wider and a little taller than the original factory size. Michelin's X-Ice snow tire is available with a 95 load rating in this size, which I had mounted on the original wheels, and which work great ($93 each from Tirerack.com). The slight increase in size still leaves plenty of clearance to fenders and suspension components. In theory, this results in a speedometer error of about 5% (with 65mph indicated, vehicle is traveling a little about 68), but in practice this is a not an issue.
Another size with many choices of tire for the factory 15" wheel is 205/65R15. This should still fit without clearance issues (though hasn't been verified), and results in a speedometer error of about 7%.
Finally, another gentleman here suggested going up to the larger 16" wheel from the Nissan Rogue, and fitting it with 205/55R16 tires (another popular size), which he said worked without any issues, and which results in a speedometer error of about 5%. I may do this for my summer tires, keeping my snows on the original wheels.
- maxbruno, Bridgeport, CT, US