What would you do?

[JOSH GARY]

I just posted this over at B15Sentra.net;
"I'm in my Spec V yesterday going down a road (45mph speed limit) and I come
up to a bend in the road. I like this particular curve and speed up to
55mph. This is on a black top surface and is two lanes
(same direction). As I get into the curve; I feel the rear end of the car
getting loose. This is my first mistake; I let off the gas! I then corrected
for the back of the car starting to go sideways; by this time, the person in
the other lane had slowed to give me some space. The back of the car then
whipped around the other direction and I corrected for that. But, it did it
again and whipped around in the opposite direction. Finally it finished what
it was doing and It straightened back up. Fortunately I never went off the
road; I don't even think I entered the other lane. I went on my merry way
and left the scene as quickly as I could (at the speed limit) and made sure
there wasn't anyone following me.

I was thinking about this later and realized my error. I'm used to driving
my rear wheel drive Frontier; when this happens in the Frontier, the worst
thing you could do is to give it gas. But, in my Front wheel drive Sentra;
If I had just mashed the gas pedal, the rear end would have straightened up
and I would have been just fine. I've practiced that before when the rear
end got loose and it worked just like a charm. This kind of makes me want to
sell the Frontier and just drive the Sentra. But, it sure is nice having two
cars; especially when one is in the shop. And I use the truck to haul stuff
around in.

I looked into getting a new set of tires for the rear end today. I'm not
going to do it though; I'll just wait till the Continentals wear out. I
found that the Kuhmo's are really cheap though.

I'm going to my first auto x on Sept 1st. I think maybe I should strictly
drive the Sentra until then. That way I'll be used to it; hopefully."

In deciding what kind of tires to get I need a little expert advice please.
My stock tires are 215/45R17 Continentals  I feel that the above incident
could have been avoided with my having better tires.  And yes, I know my
driving is at fault too.  I should have gone into the corner slow and then
accelerated coming out of it.  But, I learn from my mistakes.  LOL, or I
should just save my crazy driving for the track.

I'm looking at getting either 225/40R17, 225/45R17 (which is a much more
common size) or sticking with the stock tire size.  Playing with the
calculator over at Miatas.net; the 225/40's have a 3.5 inch sidewall, the
225/45's have a 4 inch sidewall.  The stock sidewall is 3.8 inches.  My
question is; what would be best performance wise?  Is the higher tire and
higher center of gravity really worth an extra 10mm in tire width?  Or is
the rougher road ride and speedo error really worth the extra 10mm in width
in the 40 series tire?

What would you guys/gals tire wise with your Spec V?

I've considered dropping down to 16's; but, I'm going to have to put that
off in the future$$$.

I've even considered selling the Spec V; I have trouble driving it hard; the
car just doesn't fit me very well.  I think I could go much further with
rear wheel drive.  But, I'll wait and see how I do at auto x.

Thanks,
Joshua

98 Frontier
02 Sentra SE-R Spec V