conharoo

I own a 2018 Audi A5/S-Line Sport Package with 19 inch wheels (more specifically: 255/35/19). Winter will be here for me in Pennsylvania before I know it. Currently I have Continental ContiSportContact tires on my car and am seeking advice on which tires you may recommend for winters in the northeast.

Should I go a size lower to 18 or 17 inch and purchase a whole new set of rims along with the tires? Stick to 19 inch? Winter vs. All-season tires? What do you all suggest?

Thank you in advance to anyone who is able to help! (it also may help that I have a membership at Costco - just food for thought)

Connor

Deazy

The rule of thumb is usually go as small of a wheel as possible and narrowest tire. you could probably get that set up for 1K or so at tire rack. I personally am biased towards a snow tire not sold on tire rack (Hakka R2's) but there are some good options at Tire Rack.

DecoLingo

It depends on what you want.

For wheels, you could buy dedicated winter wheels or stick with what you have. Some folks will suggest sizing down the wheel so you have a taller sidewall to protect against potholes bending your rim. Of course, the taller sidewall is likely to hurt handling a bit (though ride could improve a bit). I've bent a wheel once, on one car, despite 8 years of winter driving on 235/40-18 tires in a city with bad winter potholes (Ottawa, Canada). In my case (which may differ from yours), that's not enough of a reason for me to downsize my rims.

Another reason to downsize is a belief of improved traction. It depends on the specific tire sizes (and wheel widths) involved, but often there is going to be little or no traction difference downsizing, using the same tire. The contact patch areas for a 255/35R19 tire and a 245/45R18 tire (Audi's recommend winter tire size for your car) are nearly identical.

Regardless of size, if you go for different wheels, note that low-quality aftermarket alloys can have out-of-round issues that lead to vibration. That said, there are lots of good aftermarket wheels out there. Steel wheels, appearance aside, can be an issue as they increase unsprung weight and will adversely affect how your car rides/handles. Regardless, make sure the wheels you choose will fit (something I won't cover in detail here).

Now that you know which wheels you're going to use, pick your tire. If you're often going through deep snow, you may want to consider a snow tire. If where you drive is often cleared, a winter tire (snow tires are a type of winter tire, but all winters aren't snows) might be a better choice.

Then decide what you want out of the tire. Maximum grip on ice while braking? Maximum traction in snow? Retain your car's existing performance when the roads are either clear or just wet? Reading a few tire reviews will let you know which tires are good at what, but it's important to know what's important to you, and/or what you will encounter most of the time, as no tire does it all.

All-seasons are always a compromise. That said, the cost of multiple sets of tires or cost/hassle of changing them over twice a year might make them right for you. Further, performance from a top all-season tire today won't be far off a winter tire from 7-10 years ago, which some people feel is good enough. It depends, again, on what you're looking for.

On my car this winter (2018 S5 Sportback), I'll be mounting 255/35R19 Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4s on the factory rims. I've run a similar setup on a past car with PA3s. I expect to lose a bit of snow traction and a bit of ice braking versus something like an X-Ice or an LM60, but retain nearly all the car's handling on cleared roads, and wet/dry braking at highway speeds should feel much safer (both based on my experience with PA3s). Even where I live, the roads are clear almost all of the time.

I have also previously run Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ all-season tires year-round. Versus Pilot Alpin PA3s, they were slightly worse on snow and ice, rode more harshly, didn't handle as well, and wore faster.

Deazy

Once you drive with dedicated snows in the winter you will never go through a winter without them again. I highly recommend getting a full set and swap them out. Mounting and remounting tires is a pain and your wheels will inevitably get messed up at some point. Also your summer tires last that much longer so over time your really just paying for the wheels. At least that's how i look at it.

mplsbrian

I would recommend downsizing. There are only about 3 winter tire options in the 255/35/19 size and all are quite expensive. The quote below is also on point; you do not want a $8/hr-paid tire technician touching your $3200-at-the-parts-department set of OEM wheels with a rusty bead breaker twice a year if you can help it...just pay the man for a second set of wheels. Most dealers and plenty of indy shops even have a program to store the unmounted set for you for a nominal fee so you don't even have to store them yourself.

As for what category tire you want, I opted for a Performance Winter category tire because more often than not the roads are dry (no matter how much my skiing-and-parking-lot-donuts-addicted brain wishes otherwise) and winters in this category will still be worlds better than all-seasons, but optimize dry road handling characteristics e.g. steering feel and stability at speed a bit more than a soft "studless ice and snow" category tire designed to spend its entire mounted life in Montana.

+1

njspeedfreak

I'm going to concur with Deco. Look for a set of 18" wheels. I have OEM 18's for the summer and some 18" winter wheels I picked up from Tire Rack. You won't find that you are giving away any handling by going with an 18" wheel and taller sidewall, especially given that you won't be pushing the car to the absolute limits on winter tires anyway. In fact you will probably only notice the ride is a bit more comfortable.

As for the tire choice - of course this is always going to be a highly personal decision - but I recommend the Michelin Alpin PA4 for your area. SEPA roads are usually cleared within 12-24 hours of a storm, so unless you need to go out in the middle of the thick stuff, what little you lose in snow capability for a few hours each winter is more than made up by the much better handling of the PA4 during the other 99% of the time they will be on the car. The PA4 drives like a high performance All Season tire with almost the same snow performance of something like a Hakka or X-Ice.

One other thing to consider, late winter and early spring in this part of the country can be very unpredictable winter wise. It can go from low 40's to mid 70's to snow in the span of 2 days. It really makes it difficult to decide when to switch back to summer tires. If you do it to soon you will get caught out in a late season snow. If you wait until there is no more chance of snow hitting you will invariably end up driving on a 75 degree day on winter tires that feel like they are made out of soft grease. The PA4's seem to handle these conditions very well.

My ideal setup would be a set of Hakka's from late December until the end of Feb. All Season tires in March and November and summer tires from April thru October. But that's 3 sets of wheels and 4 tire rotations per year. Maybe when I hit the powerball I can have Jeeves handle that for me, until then it's the PA4's from Thanksgiving until Tax day.

njspeedfreak

+2. When you look at the long term costs (say over 5 years of ownership) it's a no brainer. Even more so if you have a small storage area in the garage for the tires and a decent hydraulic pump jack. It takes me less then 30 minutes to rotate out from summer to winter, and the extra set of wheels/tires sit stacked in the corner of the garage and doubles as a rack to store hockey sticks and brooms.

Here is what I stack them on in order to make them easy to move around.

Tbone323

njspeedfreak

Nikon1