Changing Tires Caused My Speeding Ticket Task

Name:____________________________

Date:____________

You have just purchased a new vehicle equipped with factory-installed P245/70R16 tires.
You think these tires look too small, so you replace them with P285/75R16 tires. While you are
driving to the club, you get pulled over for speeding and the speed your speedometer says is not
the speed the police officer saysWhat the HECK?? Today we are going to investigate how a
change in rim and tire size can cause you to get a ticket.
Before we consider how changing a tire can cause you to get a ticket, lets gather more
information about those numbers on the side of your tires.

1. The calibration of a vehicles speedometer and odometer is based on the

circumference of the vehicles factory-installed tires. Using the diagram above, write
down what each letter and symbol mean for your factory-installed P245/70R16 tires.
P means_________________

245 means__________________

70 means_________________

R means___________________

16 means_________________
2. How would changing the tire to a P285/75R16 change the data from problem 1?

3. Fill in the missing information for each tire size. (Look at the picture from the
previous page to properly identify the diameter!! It is NOT simply the rim
C d
diameter!!) Then find and record the circumference (
) of each tire.
Tire

P245/70R1
6

P285/75R1
6

Width(mm)
Aspect Ratio(%)
Height(inches)
Diameter(inches)
Circumference(inche
s)
4. After one rotation of the wheel, how many inches further has the truck with the larger
(P285/75R16) tires traveled than the truck with the factory-installed (P245/70R16)
tires? (Hint: Use the circumferences!!)
5. Set up the travel distance as a ratio of big-tire-circumference to factory-tirecircumference.
6. Now lets look at some basics of driving. Your odometer and speedometer are
calibrated to your factory-installed tires. Fill in the blanks based off of the factory
tires.
If the odometer reading is 20,000, you have actually traveled _____________ miles.
If the speedometer reading is 60, your actual speed is _______________ miles per hour.
7. If you changed your tires as described above, these readings will be different. Fill in
the blanks based off of your new tires.
If the odometer reading is 20,000, you have actually traveled _____________ miles.

If the speedometer reading is 60, your actual speed is _______________ miles per hour.
The following principles apply when determining actual distance and speed traveled according to
tire size:
Actual mileage = k odometer reading (mileage)
Actual speed = k speedometer reading (miles per hour)
where k = ____circumference of bigger tire____
circumference of factory-installed tire
8. What is the percent error in the odometer readings? In the speedometer readings?
(Think about how we can change a ratio into a percent!!)

9. How could the switch to bigger tires adjust your gas mileage?

10. Using the odometer readings in the truck equipped with the larger tires, you
determine that the gas mileage is 18 miles per gallon. However, you now know that
this is incorrect. What is your actual gas mileage in miles per gallon with the new
tires?

11. If you were driving in the truck with the larger tires and the speedometer showed a
speed of 65 miles per hour, could you be ticketed for exceeding the 65-mph speed
limit by more than 5 mph? More than 10 mph? Justify your answers.

12. How are the ratios that exist between the circumferences of the tire and the actual
miles traveled related? Will this relationship exist between any other ratios that you
used?

Now practice finding and comparing the following tire statistics based off the given tire numbers.

Tire

P245/70R15

P245/70R20

P245/80R20

Width (mm)

Aspect Ratio (%)

Height (inches)

Diameter (inches)

Circumference
(inches)

13. How did changing the rim size affect the diameter of the tire? The circumference?

14. With this change identified from problem 13, how will getting bigger rims affect your
speedometer and odometer readings?

15. How will getting bigger rims affect your gas mileage?