265/75/16 vs 265/70/17 Optical allusion?

I have 265/75/16 Wildpeaks. I don’t know if it’s an optical illusion or if in fact the 265/70/17s are bigger in reality. I have seen several Tacoma’s with the latter next to mine and the tires just look bigger. Now, they were different brands, but they just seem to fill the wheel well better. If you use a tire size calculator, it shows the two different sizes having the exact same diameter.

I can’t be the only one that feels this way.

 

standard load vs LT is a big difference.

Duratracs look like completely different tires from LT265/75R16 to 265/70R17

Falkens disguise their standard load (XL) tires quite well, but the LT tire has larger diameter.

 

A wider wheel will make tires look larger as well. If they are in aftermarket 8.5” rims they make the tires look a lot larger than on the factory 7” wide rims.

 

It's an illusion

 

Find the actual specs on the tires as the actual numbers on the same tire sizes may different then the calculations.

 

I think it varies more due to: not measuring diameter in the air, not making considerations to width change when mounted on a non-nominal rim width, different pressures affecting deflection because they're measuring on the ground, not knowing the difference between section width and overall width, etc.