this may be a silly question but my l2 has 16" wheels but i have seen same year ,2009 with 18".do,s this make any difference to m.p.g ,speed. and can i change mine for bigger ones to give me more ground clearance. and do you have to change speedo and if i can is it a big job .thanks for any reply

changing the radius to increase ground clearance will skew the speedo, and possibly add extra load to the drive train.
IMHO - to be avoided 

basic freelanders came with 16'' wheels, GS/XS/SE came with 17'' or 18'' as standard and HSE/Sport + some others came with 19'' wheels (open to correction on this but its only a rough guide)

the tyres on all sizes will be gradually reduced in side wall depth so the rolling radius of the entire wheel/tyre remained the same regardless of the wheel size.

for example (tyre width/tyre sidewall/wheel diameter)

225/70/16
235/65/17
245/55/18
255/50/19

so you can go for a bigger 17'', 18'' or even 19'' wheel and as long as the tyre size is correct then the overall rolling radius is not affected and there no need to worry about speedo reading or excessive wear.

point to note is that if the lower the profile of the tyre sidewall, then the greater the road noise and the lower the ride comfort as there is less air/rubber to absorb the potholes. Also your MPG will suffer ever so slightly.

if you want more ground clearance then your options are changing suspension components to lift it, or if you fit correct size all terrain tyres (such as General Grabber AT) then the chunkier tread will give you a very slight rise in ride height but doesn't make any real time difference.

hope this helps and yes im still open to correction from any tyre gurus out there

RogB

Last edited by RogB on 3rd Nov 2015 11:37 am. Edited 1 time in total

If you need more ground clearance you could put a bit longer struts/springs on it I suppose, or put the whole car on a separate chassis like they do with monster trucks??

some stuff here on lifting the suspension to gain height

http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic21462.html 

great info guys,after reading posts seems to be alot of change for not alot of gain have to think about this ,thanks for all your help guys

changing the wheels/tyres is not difficult. just search ebay for freelander 2/Evoque wheels and tyres, there will be tons come up.

Anywhere from £500 upwards for a set of wheels with tyres and just a straight swap for your existing ones.

You could either sell your 16'' wheels and tyres back on ebay to recover some cash or you could fit some bigger off road tyres to them and keep them for play days at off road sites etc.

great idea,thanks

Keep the rims, you just need bigger tyres.

If yours is like mine the speedometer overreads by almost 10%, so it may be accurate afterwards.

You can also put in spacers to lift the suspension and increase the ground clearance.

ye,r its another thing i will have to look at ,sounds cheapest way .thanks

Personally, I'd keep the 16's. 16" tyres are more available and generally cheaper than 17's. If you want a bit more clearance then you could go up to 235/75r16 (old disco size) they'd only be a 5% increase and would easily fit. 38mm dia increase, so 19mm lift.

I went from 235/65r17 to 245/70r17 with no issues and Speedo now matches Sat nav.

Check out http://www.tyresave.co.uk/tyresize.html size calculator

Edit - just looked, 245/75r16 are 1mm less dia than 245/70r17, so would just fit in spare well like mine do.

I sold my 17"s for £300 with the part worn tyres and bought Evoque 18"s unused for £340 - cost me £10 a corner to replace part worns with new £150 a pop Pirellis...

ebay "can be" your friend (sometimes)!!!