by George Dyke…..
Welcome to one of the foibles of owning an H Van. The original 400 mm rims are unique to the H Van and require a 17R400 tire, not something you are going to find readily available in North America.
A Google search for a Michelin 17R400 tire will indicate that a company called JEGS can get them through Coker Tire in the US (http://www.jegs.com/i/Coker-Tire/257/631774/10002/-1 and at $286.99 US per tire + shipping) but if you try to order they will tell you that they do not have it. In fact Michelin has not been making them for years so even if you do manage to find them they will be too old to fit on the vehicle.
A 400 mm diameter rim is actually 15.74″ in size. And North American and now most rims near this size are internationally are made to be 15″ or 16″ and take tires that size.
Some people with H vans are using 16″ tires on 400mm rims, but that is a potentially dangerous practice. I would recommend checking with your insurance company first if you are thinking of fitting 16″ tyres on 400mm rims as this may invalidate your insurance.
16″ General Tire mounted on original 400mm rim.
There is one correct size tire that will fit a 400 mm rim and that is the Vredestein 17R400. You can get them in UK for Citroën Classics and they further explain the H Van issue at: http://shop.citroenclassics.co.uk/h-van-tyre-17r400-vredestein-1561-p.asp
If you do order these Vredestein tires make sure not to forget to order inner tubes because the rims are tube-type.
If you don’t want to go with the Vredestein tires for your rims, maybe another option would be to go with 15” rims that do come in a 5 bolt pattern. They will be undersized though and be very careful to get the center bore hole size correct and make sure the lug holes are positioned right. Frankly I would not go that route.
On my H Van the previous owner fitted rims that 16” with a 5 bolt pattern which don’t appear to exist anywhere. Look for 16″ rims and you will see they are (almost all) 6 bolt patterns. From what I can tell about the rims they appear to be trailer type rims with regular holes drilled through flat metal in the section for the bolts. I suspect that they took a 6 hole rim, plugged up 5 of the 6 holes and re-drilled 4 new ones to get the 5 bolt pattern. That took some doing and they did it for all 5 rims (including the spare)! My H Van now sports Cooper Discoverer H/T 215/60R – 16” blackwall radials mounted on these rims. They look good and ride very well but are not original looking.
If you want to use 16″ tyres on your H van, fortunately Citroën Classics offer a 5 bolt pattern 16″ rim for that purpose. http://shop.citroenclassics.co.uk/wheel—new-16-so-you-can-legally-fit-the-cheaper-16-tyres-1654-p.asp. At £202.50 per rim + shipping they aren’t cheap, but they solve the tire problem in the best way possible for the long term.
With a 16″ rim you have a variety of tire choices including a 195/75 R 16C 107 / 105R or if you want a larger tire the 215/75 R 16 C 113/111 can be fitted. The Michelin tire model for these is the Agilis+. BF Goodrich’s model for the same is called the Activan.