Winter tyres on alloys or steels

colino

Unless the car is just utilitarian to you, why would you spoil the overall look of the car for months at a time with small alloys/ugly steelies?

westwood68

As above, choosing a set of wheels with an identical PCD and centre bore makes life much easier. A couple of cm difference in ET is usually ok (especially for winter use only) but just be sure before committing.

4x108 for PCD is very common so I'm assuming there will be a *lot* of wheels (or even wheels with tyres) on eBay that will fit just nicely. Pushes the prices down too

BeenThroughItAll

rob7475 wrote: »

have a look at http://www.mytyres.co.uk

If you put your car details in they will tell you what size wheels are available that will fit your car.

I bought 4 winter tyres on steel wheels for my megane last year and it was much cheaper to get 15" wheels than 16" (about £150 cheaper if I remember correctly).

It's loads easier to have the winter tyres put on a spare set of rims and just swap them over when it starts getting cold (i did mine at end of November last year and changed back in March).

I can highly recommend the vredestein snowtrac 3's. I was driving my car up hills with 4 inch of snow last year with no problems. Just don't forget - although you get extra grip, you still need to drive more carefully in snow/ice.

Thanks

All agreed except that the wheel size finder is nowhere near 100% accurate. It tells me I can have 15" wheels on my car, whilst I know they won't fit over the brake calipers.

TrickyWicky

Another vote for second hand alloys OR steels. No point putting winter tyres on your existing alloys as it'll cost you again to swap them off next year.

Much easier to just have the winters permanently fitted to a second set of wheels that you can store.

Prothet_of_Doom

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

ET is offset - measurement of mm between midline of the rim, and the inner hub face.

CB is centre bore - measurement of the hole in the middle of the rim. Needs to be identical to or bigger than the current wheels. If it's bigger, fit hub-centric rings to ensure you don't introduce wheel-wobble.

Also, harping on about it - MAKE SURE the diameter you choose will fit your particular car, not just the model.

My local tyre man, will remove replace the valve and refit a tyre, and balance for £8, (less if you have an mx5 and like to chat), and I'm guessing would swap over a set of tyres from summer to winter for £32 including the Vat. Assuming £64 a year, and you own the car 3 years, I'd make sure you don't pay more than £190 for 4 steel wheels.

Depending on the car, 4 second hand wheels can be had, alloy or steel at a lot less than that, so I suspect it comes down to how long you intend to keep the car.

That said, I have a set of 4 stud nova gsi 14 inch alloys in my shed, with knackered tyres, which would go nicely on (most) an old front wheel drive vauxhall. I had them on an astra that had cavalier gsi front brakes, and there was just enough room, with a knat's testicle to spare. (technical term we use in engineering) I might have to stick them on ebay, but I hanker after a 1.3 nova sport circa 1985, and so have procrastinated for 6 years. :rotfl:

Building_Surveyor

colino wrote: »

Unless the car is just utilitarian to you, why would you spoil the overall look of the car for months at a time with small alloys/ugly steelies?

I tend to agree with this but suppose it depends on what car you had. I'd be reluctant to swap some nice shiny rims that id paid for, for bog standard steels. However for ease and costs I'm sure it's more beneficial to have the extra wheels and they're easier to change.

red_eye

chrisfreelander54 wrote: »

Looking at getting winter tyres after getting stranded last winter, the problem I have is do I buy tyres to put on my alloys 195/45/16 or buy a set of 15 inch steel wheels with tyres.

Also as regards to tyres on the 15 inch steels what size would I need?

Regards
Chris.

for every size you go up in dia or width you go down a size in profile, this will get you close to the rolling radius of your original wheels 195/50 15 or better 175/60 15.

Prothet_of_Doom

Oh and beware fitting winter tyres on one end of the car only.

We had winter tyres on the front of a cavalier, and it became a little tail happy (or unhappy).

Prothet_of_Doom

red_eye wrote: »

for every size you go up in dia or width you go down a size in profile, this will get you close to the rolling radius of your original wheels 195/50 15 or better 175/60 15.

It's not hard to work out. 195 is the width in mm, 50 is the amount of rubber distance between the rim and the diameter of the tyre, as a %age, so 50% of 195 mm is 97.5mm = 3.55 inchs
you double that 7.11 inches, and add that to the wheel diameter = 15 inches plus 7.11 = 22.11.
Circumference = 3.142 (pye) X Diameter = 69.5 inch

So the same for the target tyre. should be within 5% really.

175/60 15 = 71.2 inch circumference.

Personally I'd like to keep the same width. I know a narrowed tyre will cut through snow better.

Mankysteve

colino wrote: »

Unless the car is just utilitarian to you, why would you spoil the overall look of the car for months at a time with small alloys/ugly steelies?

More likely to clip curbs when slipping in snow and the extra salt damaging the alloys so save the good rims for when the weather hal