20" Staggered snow tire options anyone??

[scottyv]

Just wondering has anyone tried any good snow tires on the X6 20" sport package wheels.

Looks like the best size fit be the Pirelli Snow & Ice

265/45/20 Front & 295/40/20 Rear

The rear rims being 11" mandates a wide rear tire and really limits you.

It's only a bit over a grand ($1000) for the setup which is reasonable enough.

Of course 18" or 19" narrower rim (&tires) woulld be better, but I want a good looking winter rim, and am willing to trade some traction for the better look. But it has to work well enough to make it a wise decision. I am thinking it will with a true snow tire on all fours albeit wider than suggested.

I will be buying 22's for summer wheels so I don't want 3 sets of wheels either.

All this being said, has any had any real world experience with the 20" sport package wheels with winter sonow on them?

[AZX6]

Since we now live in Phoenix and only drive up to the snow occasionally, I can't offer you any experiential advice on winter tires for an X6. What I can offer is some knowledge gained from more than a few years in the tire business.

Any dedicated winter tire is going to work better than our OE. This is mainly because they are going to stay soft and pliable even when the temperature drops below freezing. This means the tires are going to perform at a much higher level in the cold (below about 45 degrees), not just when the roads actually have some rain, snow, or ice on them. The compounds in summer and all season tires just aren't capable of staying as soft in cold weather. If they were, they'd wear out way too fast and handle horribly when it's hot.

On top of the specific compounds, the additional sipes and more aggressive tread of any dedicated winter tire will make an amazing difference, no matter how wide they are.

Hope this helps!

[thooooorgal]

good idea.

I need also snow tyres, but as i change car / models each 1,5 years, i'm bored of the extra cost of a dedicated set of winter wheels.

I have also the 20', and so need to know which winter tyres i can adapt on those wheels.

Original size of tyres :

F: 275/40/20
R: 315/35/20

i do not know the sizes of the Rims:

F: 20x??
R 20x??

What is the smallest tyres we can put both on front and rear (stagered) due to the width of the rims ? any other recommendation of tyres ?

[eg3]

I have gone with replica 20" OEMs off ebay and 275/40/20 Pirelli snows all around. The wheels are narrower than stock (20x9.5) which should help out better in snow. It cost me about the same money than going with 20" runflat snows in staggered sizes.

[Barmats]

If you encounter deep snow, wide tires really don't do very well. I've had wide snow tires in the past and was unimpressed with their deep snow performance. I know what you mean about wanting your X6 to look good even in the winter, but mounting non-staggered snows (perhaps 255's) on dedicated winter rims in a -1 or -2" configuration will be less expensive than 20 inchers and will perform well. Depending where you are in Michigan, this might be something to consider vs expensive, wider snow tires. After all, it's only for 6 months, right?

[thooooorgal]

i agree with you, but i'm my personnal case, switching car so often, i do not want again to have another set of winter wheels.

So, considering this, what is the smallest tyres (winter) we can put on OEM 20' rims ?

F: ?X20
R: 11x20

which tyres ?

[scottyv]

Again, looks like the best size fit for the rims is the Pirelli Snow & Ice

265/45/20 Front & 295/40/20 Rear

but there is a slight height (& circumfrence) difference of .1" between the front and rear tires, now it's not a lot but I still don't like it.

http://www.net-comber.com/tirecalc.html

There is no direct fit snow replacement for the rear 315/35/20 stock tire and therin lies the problem, as every other combination produces some slight front to rear diameter/circumfrence diffrence.

You could try to fit 275/40's all the way around (this is the stock front size) now it may work, but on the rear I have found the max recommended rim width for a 275mm tire is 10.5 not 11"

http://www.kgm.tiwing.com/calcs/tiresizecalc.htm


295/40/20's on all fours will fit on both the 10" front & 11" rear tires (10 -11.5 is acceptable) but now you are talking some pretty wide tires for snow tires, especially the fronts.

I would rather stay with all four the same for rotation purposes as well, as snow tires are notorious for wearing rather quickly (soft compounded rubber).

I don't know what the acceptable diameter/circumfrence allowance is for an AWD from front to rear is, and nobody wants to find out the hard way either.

Maybe the the Pirelli solution with the small variance will wotk but I need some expert advice here.

Here's what Tire rack says:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=18

Looks like they are giving very little leeway on sizing discrepancies, so I'd be real suspect of try to do a staggered solution that isn't spot on like the OEM 275/40, 315/35 which is incredibly close if you use the calculators I provided.

No other combination come close to this setups precise match.

So for me I'm thinking all four the same now, unless somebody like Pirelli would make a 315/35/20 snow tire but no one does right now.

[thooooorgal]

For the moment, i have an E92 M3.

Original size are:

245/35/19 ==> 25.752'
265/45/19 ==> 26.303'

Official winter kit i have bought from BMW is a squared setup of

235/40/18 ==> 25.402'

as you can see in the M3, the OEM summer set has a difference of 0,6', which is also different of 0,3' compared to the summer size.

I think we can cope with a 0,1' difference between front and rear for our winter tyres.

Edit: did not read your article for AWD .. still think 0,1' diff should be ok

[scottyv]

On the M3 slight diffrencess are not problem not being AWD.

On AWD it is very critical, but I gotta figure you could attribute 1/10 " difference at any time due to under/over inflation variance between each tire.

Damn Pirelli just make us a 315/35/20 snow tire already!