melly

Has anyone put performance ice/snow tires on the stock 17s wheels?

It seems that the sizes are limited (Tirerack.com)

Any oldtimers (rls purchased last fall/winter) with suggestions?

thanks,

Mark

Nocturnal

I don't think 'performance' and 'ice/snow' belong in the same sentence. The requirements are so far apart that it's impossible to combine both in a single tire. I've never driven on Blizzacks but I hear their handling on dry roads is pretty poor. OTOH I'm currently running High Perf M+S tires (Continentals) and they behave reasonably well on dry and wet roads. I would be very careful on any snow however.

I assume Flagstaff gets snow for quite a few months in the year?

klister

Living in the mountains of Vermont, I used these tires all last winter on the RL in size 225/55-17 which is close enough to the standard 245/50-17 to be o.k. They are a great compromise between ice and snow handling and good dry road performance. I had previously used them on my Audi allroad with good results.

I guess that we get as bad a conditions as you will encounter, so I would recommend them highly. You can get better snow performance with some of the Nokians but the loss in dry road performance was more than I find acceptable.

Good luck. BTW you can find them at TireRack.

Nocturnal

Narrower tire is better anyway for snow traction. Good info in those Dunlops, thanks.

melly

nocturnal/klister-

thanks for the info....

klister - i had considered the Dunlops, but had concern that the 225 width would look wierd (not sure about theOEM WHEEL width) - wide rim/narrow tire.....

how did the tire look on the wheel? was there any wheel lip prtection?

thanks again!

mark

klister

Rim width was fine. Tire width is only marginally smaller and not really noticable. One reason is that apparently the Michelin ruler is slightly smaller than the other tire makers. In other words, the width of the Michelin tires is slightly less than the width of most other makers tires of the same nominal width. So, the the width difference is smaller than the nominal size differences.

There is more information about this than you would ever want in the forums at Audiworld. And,as someone said already, narrower is better for snow tires.

One issue that did surface when I returned to the standard tires was that the SH-AWD sensors registered an error. Though the diameter difference was tiny, the sensors registered an abnormality and issued a warning. We consulted Acura and they advised us that we just needed to run the standard tires for awhile and the sensors would then adjust back to those tires and the warnings would cease, which they did.

hondamore

I also mounted the 225/55/17 Dunlop Wintersport M3's on my stock rims. I made the choice of tire based on it's ratings on Tirerack and other tire sites and based on the excellent feedback I found on forums such as this. That said, I have yet to try them myself, so can't give a first hand review. I would also recommend the 225 size since narrower snow tires "cut through" the snow better. Wider tires driven on snow and ice tend to act like skis and slide around a lot more than narrower tires (not that a 225 is a narrow tire, but relative to the 245's it should perform a little better in snow).

loud_whispers

I have a set of 05' RL wheels if your intrested.
im selling the wheels/tires/sensors.

Could very well benefit you if your using snow tires in the winter. Save you from Mount and balance every year.
Also, when the Michelin's that you have on your car now wear low, you can have an extra brand new set waiting for you.

Pictures of the wheels/tires are located HERE

Good luck.
thanks.

melly

thanks, but i kept the stock 17 wheels just for snow/ice tires.....maybe someone else needs them?