tires

[fluidculture]

so i need new tires for the stock 17's. but i have a new set of 18" wheels from velocity motoring. debating whether to just throw the 18's on with a set of all season or just replace the 17" tires. does anyone on here run 18's all winter long? if so, how often do you clean the wheels during the winter with all the snow and salt.

[awdjunkies]

For winter, Usually you'd want to run thinner/skinnier tires. Therefore in essence if I had a choice between 18 and 17 inch tires, I would go with the 17's and if you are talking stock size which is 235/45/17, I run 225's for my winter set up.

Also, what do your 18's look like? are they nice enough to run a summer tire and leave your stockers(17s) to become a dedicated winter tire?

[Antekaudi]

I had 18x8 wheels with 235/40 tires during winter time. They were all-season kumho tires with quattro i had no problem moving around even in deep snow. I live in CT btw.

Only downside is that my wheels got fuc*ed up, the lip had to be refinished.

[Akronnnnnnnn]

there's no way in hell I'd run VMRs during the winter. I'm sure you can find a relatively cheap set of snow tires.

[widgget]

use the 17s for snow tires.

getting a set of Firestone WinterForce tires installed on the 5spd on friday and going to do the tiptronic sometime next month.

out of 25 reviews i have read on the Firestone WinterForce tires all are excellent except for one and they were bitching about how they couldn't take turns at 50+ in a snow storm with a rear wheel drive minivan. low cost, great performance in snow, stud-able, only cons were that about 20% of the reviews said they were a little loud, but they are snow tires, not ultra high performance summer tires and i expect them to be loud.

also good snow tires use a soft compound so be sure to switch them back out once the snow is gone so you can use them again next year.