ELEVENS

YoudaMan. Winter driving is very serious business and you obviously understand that. When it comes to winter tires and wheels, screw "form over function"

TopCarbon

I went with 20" VMR V710s and Pirelli Scorpions. I like them; good handling, quiet and they seem to have good availability in case you happen to damage one. Many of the other winter tires in this size are now sold out. The package cost me about $3,500 all in.

nathanjbrown

Wow. Very nice wheels. Is that the gunmetal finish or silver? And did you go 20x9 or 20x10?

SQ5

Wow. Looks great. I actually like your winter look better than my stock summer look.

Not sure I want to drop $3-4K on a winter setup though. Was hoping to be under $1500, certainly under $2K. Looks like 20" wheels and winter tires could blow that budget out of the water. Leaning towards 19" or 18" Nokian R2's on inexpensive graphite colored wheels. Going to shop around and see what type of deal I can find.

TopCarbon

Gunmetal, 20x9, 35mm offset. In this size, to get the gunmetal you have to have the centerbores remilled to 66.6mm. I ordered these from Pyspeed in California and they did this for a nominal fee. The fit was perfect. You do need to purchase R13 studs though which will be the case for most of the non-OEM wheels. I checked my receipts and it was about $2,900 total including mounting and the new wheel studs.

userbbc

TopCarbon, was the difference in wheel bolt ball seat radius immediately noticeable?
I've a Q5 (not an SQ5) and nobody (including the dealer) can seem to definitively answer whether the Q5 uses R14 or R13 wheel bolts. When I superimposed an A4 R13 bolt onto a Q5 bolt via photoshop I couldn't tell the difference.

TopCarbon

It's very hard to see the difference just looking at the studs, but if you insert them in an unmounted wheel you can feel the difference. The correct radius stud will be a perfectly snug fit, but the wrong radius will wobble slightly. You'll never notice it just mounting the wheels either but they won't hold a torque setting as well and could of course damage the wheels. My dealer mounted my VMR wheels with the OEM R14 studs (used on all Q5s) and I changed them a month later when I learned of this. Thankfully no damage was done and the ball seats still looked perfect.

userbbc

Thanks for the input!
My dealer couldn't tell me for sure whether the Q5 uses R14, or R13 for that matter. To be safe, will probably be buying a set of R13's as well.
Do you remember where you bought your bolts?
Per measuring the OEM bolts, the effective length of the shank is about 30mm.
I see a number of bolts either for the usual Audi 27mm or for 32mm which supposedly could be too long (though I don't see much that the bolts could bump up against 2mm past the rotors)

TopCarbon

I got mine from Achtuning.

spijun

For the original rims M14x1,5x45mm, for alternative rims depends on the manufacturer (for example: Hartmann for all models Q5 and SQ5 new lug bolts required)http://shop.achtuning.com/HR-lug-bol...Q5-wheels.aspx

Model: 1PA standard wheel bolts, 1PD anti-theft wheel bolts





PS: For your dealer ........... NO COMMENT