Nuttz4Sports

So I ordered my A4 with a sports suspension and 18" wheels. Partly because I wanted all season tires, and partly because I was afraid that the 19" wheels/tires offered would make the ride too stiff.


I know some of you have the 19" wheels and summer tires and have stated that the ride was not that stiff. The tires offered with the 19" rims are 255/35. But I was wondering, what would happen If I did put on 19" rims with either 255/45 or 245/45. Since I prefer all season tires, there are more choices for these sizes than there are for the 255/35. But I'm not only curious on how it will impact the ride, but also if there would be space issues in the wheel well since the car has the sports suspension.


I'm assuming there are folks out here that have gone with other than the OEM sizes. Please let me know your experiences and if you had to make any modifications to adjust for size differences.

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255/45 and 245/45 have approx 8% larger diameter than oem 245/35 19"s. You don't want to change the tire diameter more than 3%. Shift points will change, speedometer and odometer readings will change. Brakes will be over taxed. Handling will less responsive. If you go with 19"s stick with either 255/35 or 245/35. Unless you have third world roads 35 series tires will be fine.

Nuttz4Sports

Thanks for the info. So based on the fact that the base wheel and tires are the 18" ones, does Audi make adjustment to the speedometer and fuel calculators when folks order the 19"wheels.

I actually just found out about this lovely tire calculator and learned that going to the 19" wheels and tires that Audi offers, impacts speed by 2%.....so without the adjustments to the speedometer the 19" wheels will actually having you going faster that what the speedometer says.

Tyre Size Calculator

However, based on it, I saw that if I do decide to buy 19" wheels, I could also use 245/40/19 and it would essentially be the same as the the 245/45/18

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[QUOTE=Nuttz4Sports;24951393]Thanks for the info. So based on the fact that the base wheel and tires are the 18" ones, does Audi make adjustment to the speedometer and fuel calculators when folks order the 19"wheels./QUOTE]

All Audi does is change the profile (series) of the tires so the diameter stays the same and no odometer or speedometer changes are needed.

These are the tire sizes that the U.S. gets. I'm not sure what size tires the rest of the world gets.
18's get 245/40
19's get 245/35

Nuttz4Sports

Ummm....so I see that I made a mistake....I thought the 18s came with 245/45 and the 19s with 255/35....they 18s actually come with 245/40 and the 19s with 245/35...
so the difference in diviation is .001%

up-n-coming

Exactly, and 245/40/19 and 245/45/18 stray too far from the oem diameter so they won't perform correctly.

VipinLJ

Has anyone considered staggered setups? A friend has a staggered setup on his 328i. Idk what the benefits are but it seemed cool to me. Any thoughts?

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Not sure you can do staggered with quattro without causing premature wear or damage. Pretty sure the diameter on all four tires need to match. Thats hard to do with a staggered setup.

VipinLJ

Oh okay. The friend I know has a 2WD 328i. Maybe that's why he could do it. Just seemed cool to me. That's all.

Nuttz4Sports

Ok, so I know that I was told and I didnt listen....so now I find myself regretting not getting the 19" rims.....My car is scheduled to be completed tomorrow, so obviously too late to call the dealership......

so now I am left wondering how I can get a set of those 19" OEM 10 V Spoke rims. I tried calling the parts department in the dealership and the guy didn;t even know what I was talking about and I had to help navigate him to the Audi USA site so he could see the rims I was talking about. Then when he found them, he gae me a price of $820 per rim without tires or center caps...yikes.....I'm not sure he wasn't trying to rape me, but I was able to get the part number and when I googles it, I saw a few listing on ebay for the rims, but each listing was for 1 rim and ranged from $300 to $350 per rim.

Anyone here ever bought the rims after ordering the car and is there any other place to get them other than the dealer or ebay and can I really expect any other dealer to tell me it's gonna cost me $3300 for a set of rims.