diaudi13

Hello all,

I just picked up my 2011 A8 L and I want to put winter tires

18s or 19s for winter?
Bridgestone, Michelin, Dunlop or Continental?
Offset and size of tire?

Thanks in advance for your expert opinions.

A 8

As always its dependant on your specific (mostly weather) conditions and preferences. Where I live during the winter season its mostly between -5 and +5 degrees C with an occasional stretch of snow and sometimes icy roads. 90% of the times the roads are wet and/or with or snow slash (if that word translates ok?)
I decided to try Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4 235/55/18 xtra load on RS6 18x8 ET25 rims with my D4 and put them on last week, its still like 10-15 degrees c so no winter experience yet but I find them very quiet compared to my GoodYear F1 265/40/20 summer tires, they eat any rough surface without much change in road noise. I am still breaking in the tyres so have not pushed the car and tyres to its limits yet but it seems very promising, was doing 180 km/h yesterday without any stability issues at all.
You could say the car has transformed from a sports car to a limo, its very comfortable but still keeping a bit of its edge.
Even though the 55 profile works quite well and probably is the most sensible choice on the soggy roads I get during the winter I would probably have gone for the 235/50/19 option if it was available with these tyres and in general I think it would be a better balance between looks, comfort and performance for the D4. I also decided on black rims so now the car is referred to as the batmobile
During the winter the cars and rims gets crazy dirty where I drive and trying to keep the car clean is an hour a day job so I figured why not keep it all black but I am not sure I did the right thing.
Here are some quick pics, hope you have fun looking at them (the car looks strange but sort of weirdly aggressive);

diaudi13

Thanks for your help on this A8. I definitely like your set up. Thanks for the pics it looks great in my opinion. I have yet to decide.

I live in the country so when i get snow it takes the plowers at least half a day to plow the snow. On my M3 I run 245 40 18 blizzaks and it does ok in snow.