Spart
Senior Member
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- #1
I wanted a winter tire setup that:
Things I didn't care about in the slightest:
One of the counterintuitive things about offset is that maintaining the same offset between different width wheels keeps the center of the wheel in the same spot, not the face of the wheel. I wanted a similar amount of poke to the OEM 19x9.5 wheels, and when you drop 1.5" of width, you can compensate by dropping ~19mm of offset. So a notional 18x8 wheel that has identical "poke" to a 19x9.5 +60 OEM wheel would have a 41mm offset.
The 18x8 +44 BBS SR wheels were very close to that notional perfect size, and they would allow me to meet the rest of my criteria as well.
The vendor for these told me that I would need to run a minimum of a 3mm spacer in order to clear the front brakes. When they arrived, I found that to not be true, the wheels spun freely and did not contact the brake caliper, but only just. It seemed to me like the combination of the short hub on the front brake rotors and the design of the BBS "PFS" hub centric rings would not allow for a wheel to be hub centric with a 3mm spacer, so I ended up buying 2mm spacers from a company called "Caold Technology" out of Australia. They are nothing fancy, and they fit and work just fine without vibrations. My reference for how much brake caliper clearance is enough is a 2024 Mercedes GLE63 AMG S - Merc gives you roughly 1/8" with the OEM setup. I know some people want to see something closer to 1/4" or even 1/2", but if it's good enough for Mercedes it's good enough for me I guess. These 2mm spacers get me into that range.
As far as tires, I've been running Blizzaks forever and decided to change it up this time around and went with Nokian Hakkapeliitta R5's. We will see if they live up to the hype.
225/40R18 gets me really close in revs/mile to the OE Michelins (826 revs/mile for the Nokians vs 822 for the Michelins.) That will keep the speedometer reading correctly and dropping down from 265 to 225 will do wonders for hydroplane resistance on slushy roads.
The car is very dirty in these pics, but the white hides most of that. My dog is a window licker, don't mind the rear windows.
- Looks similar-ish to the OEM wheels.
- Has durability comparable to an OEM wheel.
- Uses 18" wheels in order to get a little more meat in the sidewall.
- Keeps the speedometer accurate.
- Doesn't "poke" since this is just a good way to cover the side of the car in salt spray and grime.
- Is significantly narrower than the OEM summer setup in order to improve hydroplane resistance.
- Is generally safe and effective in harsh winter weather.
Things I didn't care about in the slightest:
- Aggressive fitment.
- Impressing the ladies.
One of the counterintuitive things about offset is that maintaining the same offset between different width wheels keeps the center of the wheel in the same spot, not the face of the wheel. I wanted a similar amount of poke to the OEM 19x9.5 wheels, and when you drop 1.5" of width, you can compensate by dropping ~19mm of offset. So a notional 18x8 wheel that has identical "poke" to a 19x9.5 +60 OEM wheel would have a 41mm offset.
The 18x8 +44 BBS SR wheels were very close to that notional perfect size, and they would allow me to meet the rest of my criteria as well.
The vendor for these told me that I would need to run a minimum of a 3mm spacer in order to clear the front brakes. When they arrived, I found that to not be true, the wheels spun freely and did not contact the brake caliper, but only just. It seemed to me like the combination of the short hub on the front brake rotors and the design of the BBS "PFS" hub centric rings would not allow for a wheel to be hub centric with a 3mm spacer, so I ended up buying 2mm spacers from a company called "Caold Technology" out of Australia. They are nothing fancy, and they fit and work just fine without vibrations. My reference for how much brake caliper clearance is enough is a 2024 Mercedes GLE63 AMG S - Merc gives you roughly 1/8" with the OEM setup. I know some people want to see something closer to 1/4" or even 1/2", but if it's good enough for Mercedes it's good enough for me I guess. These 2mm spacers get me into that range.
As far as tires, I've been running Blizzaks forever and decided to change it up this time around and went with Nokian Hakkapeliitta R5's. We will see if they live up to the hype.
225/40R18 gets me really close in revs/mile to the OE Michelins (826 revs/mile for the Nokians vs 822 for the Michelins.) That will keep the speedometer reading correctly and dropping down from 265 to 225 will do wonders for hydroplane resistance on slushy roads.
The car is very dirty in these pics, but the white hides most of that. My dog is a window licker, don't mind the rear windows.
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