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.
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