Just bought a 2016 328i x-drive wagon, and want to put on my snow tires from the old car. The tires have only 4,000 miles on them, and the person i sold the old car to didn't want them. I tried bolting them on, and the bolt pattern is the same. Here is the issue. The new car has 225/50-17 tires, and the snows I have are 205/55-16. The way i figure, as long as the rolling radius is the same on all four tires, why won't they work on the new car. They were, by the way, on a 2008 328i x-drive wagon. By reducing the rolling radius, i guess the speedo might be off a bit, but, not that big a deal. Discount Tire Direct's web site, says that i could use 205/55-17 as an alternative. What are the potential issues i could have?
This may be helpful: https://www.rimsntires.com/specspro.jsp This probably would be a good question for someone at the Tire Rack - one question I'd have would be if the load capacity of the smaller tires is within range or acceptable for the newer & presumably heavier & larger car. Arguments against would be the loss in road clearance, the old tires have an inch less diameter, so you're losing an inch of ground clearance. That could be an issue if you're trying to transit thru heavy snow & need such ground clearance. The shorter tire would also have you turning more rpm's, so for any given speed the engine will be revving a bit higher; not sure if there's much to worry about as far as engine wear is concerned, but, you will lose a bit of gas mileage. Offset should be considered, but there's not much difference there (assuming I looked up the right wheels on realoem.com), so that part is probably ok. Brake caliper clearance might be an issue but if Tire Rack or others show 16's as an option, that could be ok - would depend on the wheel. Don't forget that tires age out regardless of mileage - if they're aged-out, a new set specific to your car might be an option worth considering. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=138 https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=183 X-drive systems it's particularly important for the difference between front & rear diameters to stay within range, if the old tires were all the same size, that shouldn't be an issue.