RE: <E39> 17" snow tires?

["Bob Sutterfield" <Bob@xxxxxx>]

Robert A. Virzi wrote:
> ... or pick up 16" wheels dedicated to the winter tires.

That's what we do.  When the snow falls, I take off the lovely clean
alloy wheels with fat low-profile high performance summer rubber.  I
replace them with small cheap ugly steel wheels with hideous plastic
covers, wearing tall narrow squirmy snow tires.  Whichever set isn't on
the car at the moment is stacked in a corner of the garage.  It only
takes a few minutes per corner to swap them, using a small floor jack
and hand tools.  (Even quicker, but louder, with a cordless impact
wrench :-)

When the snow melts (here in Denver, that's only a few days later) I put
the nice wheels back on again, because it's no fun to drive snow tires
on dry pavement.  This is another advantage of dedicated wheels: they're
only on the car when they're needed, and we can enjoy our hi-po rubber
the rest of the time.  If I were switching tires on the same set of
wheels, we'd be on snows from Thanksgiving into April, just in case.

On our 5er we run 16" alloy wheels in the summer and 15" steelies with
snows, rather than your 17"/16", but the principle is the same.

> I am questioning whether the low profile snows
> will work very well.

Depends upon your conditions.  Narrow tires cut better through several
inches of accumulation, which is what we have on our cul-de-sac on the
morning after an overnight snowfall.

John wrote:
> I figure it will be easier and less hassle to replace the 
> wheels/tire than to remount/unmount the tires every season.

Yes, and less chance of damage to your alloy wheels.  Also your snow
tires will last longer since they're not seeing constant use on dry
pavement, so you can get even more expensive, specialized tires that are
narrowly focused on your conditions: lugs for snow, studs for ice, or
whatever.

> I am not sure what it costs these days...

A nearby Big O Tires outlet does the job for $10 complete: dismount,
discard, mount, balance.  I take the track wheels there when they need
new rubber, which is fairly frequent.  They're even happy to work with
tires I didn't buy in their store, such as the products I get from Tire
Rack.
- --
Bob Sutterfield
'87 E30 325iS http://bmwe30.net #1129 DAS KAR
'88 E28 535iS http://m535i.org   #154 IHR FUNF
BMWCCA #169277 Rocky Mountain Chapter

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