Steel wheels for the winter

glock17

glock17

Member
Yes, it's the time of year to start thinking about winter motoring, not that we seemed to have much of a summer.

Whilst in with the stealer today I got the helpful parts guy to look up what steel wheels (comfier ride, less cleaning!) they do for mine (1.4 tdi, 90PS, SE with 16 inch 6 spokes)

He came up with part# 8Z0 601 027, and a code of
5.5 JX15H2 ET34 5/100.
Price is about £32 a corner +VAT.

Three questions
1. Will they fit without trouble?
2. If so, what size tyres should I look for (purely for the winter, mix of gritted main roads and non gritted B roads and lanes)
185/50 R15
165/65 R15
or 155/65 R15
3. Do I look for a particular make/model from the VAG group that would fit and be cheaper?

Thanks

glock17
 
go ask someone for a price for "semperit winter grip" in 175/60R15. They'll probably ask "what are they?" - they should be around £180-200 for all four and they're pretty good. cheap, winter-capable (if it does leave more than 1cm on the ground, you'll scare everyone except the Landy drivers) - does what it says on the sidewall.

But don't be surprised if they've never heard of them!

If you want to see *what else* is available in Central europe, then try wheelmachine2000.de. I'm a big fan of winter tyres and figure they'd help for 4 months or so (end oct to start march) when it might frost or snow or just be cold.

Hope this helps.

Bret
 
Hi glock17
They don't do Semprit but the mytyres web site lists several winter spec options in the 175/60/15 size (select T speed rating) Goodyear comes out well in the test summary shown against each tyre model. They tend to sell out very quickly once the first flake of snow appears so buy early. I have never used this company but their site is very informative and you get a guide price to use for bartering with your local dealer
http://www.mytyres.co.uk/start.html

Cheers Spike
 
the UG6s are supposed to be very good.

thanks, you've just saved me a bunch of cash; the boots we need for our 307 are about €130 each here, but through the mytyres site (they're reifendirekt.de with a bunch of branches, including one here), the Nokians I want are €86 each. Excellent :)

Bret
 
Thanks guys.
Have ordered the wheels.
Will look at all the tyre sites though those ones Spike mentioned have scored well.
I can't really use mytyres as they have only one fitting place in the country, but I'll read their T&Cs a bit more.

When ordering the wheels at £32 each I was asked if I wanted the covers too. Depends on the price I said, £21 each. Err, no ta!

Made me smile that they sell wheel trim for almost as much as a wheel!

Cheers

glock17
 
Hi glock17
As the mytyres price includes carriage could you just buy the tyres and get your usual tyre depot to fit them. Over here it normally costs around £10 per wheel, including the valve and balancing. Having said that, I have found my local dealer will usually match the 'fitted' price, particularly when buying 4 tyres

Cheers Spike
 
Spike,

Thanks to living here mytyres charge an extra £9.75 per tyre to deliver.
Their sister site, eiretyres don't, and it would appear that they also deliver to NI. They also sell the Semperit Winter grip that bretti mentioned though they don't score as well as the Good Year or the Dunlop.

Cheers

glock17
 
After much searching and debate I settled for the Conti Winter Contact which were a factory order from a local dealer and took 2 weeks to come in.

When I got the wheels I had checked 2 of the 4 boxes to make sure they looked right. The other evening I dragged the four boxed wheels to the car and emptied them. Two wheels were the proper ones, the other two weren't!

Turns out the dealer gave me some silver steels from a VW van!
Was tempted to flog them on Ebay and just order 2 more wheels, but resisted.

Proper 2 wheels arrived in today so the Pink Panzer is now booted for the winter.

The black of the wheels does match all the black plastic so I may not go for trims, leave it a week or so to see how I like the look.

Cheers

glock17
 
spike said:
Hi glock17
They don't do Semprit but the mytyres web site lists several winter spec options in the 175/60/15 size (select T speed rating) Goodyear comes out well in the test summary shown against each tyre model. They tend to sell out very quickly once the first flake of snow appears so buy early. I have never used this company but their site is very informative and you get a guide price to use for bartering with your local dealer
http://www.mytyres.co.uk/start.html

Cheers Spike
Click to expand...

Hi glock, mytyres.co.uk has a special promotion running,

tyres with extra 3% discount promotion

3% extra OFF their tyres. Ennjoy!
 
Have been running the steel wheels and winter tyres for some time and they have been fantastic.

The past week has not been good however. Last Thursday I was driving along some back roads between access points for work when I hit a pothole disguised as a puddle. Impact was about 35mph and ruined the rim and bulged the sidewall of the tyre.
Yesterday the map/reading light cluster fell out and can only be the result of the impact. Both the front plastic clips have broken off, one fell out and the other must be in the headlining somewhere. Dealer has quoted £76 for new one, may try superglue!
Today after picking up a new wheel (up £3) and new tyre both the engine management warning light and ASR light came on. Stopped, switched off and waited a few minutes then restarted. Problem gone.
My work have said they will not pay for the damage. I have said I will no longer use my car for business purposes. 40p per mile doesn't cover running costs, extra servicing, never mind £100 for new wheel and tyre.

Car is in tomorrow to have the front drop links replaced, will ask them to do an inspection to check for any other damage.

AAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

Cheers

glock17
 
Sorry to hear of your troubles and hope that that's all the bad luck out of the way for you this year!

If you can't repair the light, I have a new one here, taken out of Tank when I changed to the black headliner.

I can do it for half price, plus postage if you like.

It's unlikely that the clips broke from the pothole - they're pretty tough.

It's more likely that a technician has had it out at some point and forced it in - they did this to my black light when the car was in for the Opensky repairing. Fortunately no clips were broken, they just bent the metal out of all recognisable shape and put the light in the wrong way round!!!

Cheers,

Mike
 
check the ABS sensor on each wheel/axle, esp. on the one with the damage.
That could have cause the warning lights.
 
Thanks Mike, will attempt a repair at the weekend and let you know. Is it grey?
Thanks Erstens, had garage check today, no sign of damage to the sensors.
It may have been a one off, at least I hope so!

Cheers

glock17
 
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