Winter tires - help

[ottawainsurance]

So help me out - I just picked up the v8 - and I live in Ottawa, Canada. Obviously, my next purchase is a set of winter tires. What should I buy? where? size? (the manual says get same size - P235/50R-18, but a lot of other sites recommend going down in size for winter. I have looked at tirerack.com - anyone know if I am going to have to pay a bunch of money at customs if I order from there? Help, we got our first bit of snow today!

 

[rmwweb]

Can't help you with the tirerack question but can confirm that you will definitely want to get winter tires on soon.

Last year when i got my winter tires, they made a mistake and put on Yokohama's (can't recall the model) instead of the Continental's I had ordered. Turns out that was unfortunate because once they corrected the mistake, it was immediately apparent that the Yoko's were far better tires than the Conti's. Oh well.

If you have a 2009 model, I would recommend that you go down to the 17" wheels. If I remember correctly the 17"ers are 225R55 versus the 18 235R50's. You might be among the lucky owners who don't have a problem with the ride but it won't hurt to have the extra sidewall height during the cold months either way.

RW

 

[wallymn]

if you drop to 17s be sure the rims are going to fit around the brake caliper
I have listed the required offsets in another thread.

others in Canada have complained about the import tax from tirerack but I don't have any experience as a US buyer...

 

[STREETS]

Stick to same size even if you switch rims. Car was meant to have this tire dimension. Sure a narrower tires may help a little, but you're still driving on clear pavement 90% of the time. BLIZZAK LM22's or 25's are the ticket.

 

[Vidfreaky]

I ordered mine from Tirerack 1 month ago and the price listed on the site included all the brokerage fees, tax, duty, etc. There were no extra fees upon delivery. I went with the 17" recommended size on Tirerack and they work just fine. They were the same size that my Hyundai dealer wanted to put on.

 

[musher51]

Stick to same size even if you switch rims. Car was meant to have this tire dimension. Sure a narrower tires may help a little, but you're still driving on clear pavement 90% of the time. BLIZZAK LM22's or 25's are the ticket.

Not true. A smaller wheel diameter is desirable for snow tires, a viewpoint that's universally endorsed by tirerack.com and manufacturers such as BMW and HMA. As long as you adhere to the fitment guides, you won't have any problem putting a slightly smaller wheel onto your car. I've been running winter tires that are 1" smaller than my summer tires on four consecutive vehicles. While I can't quantify the improvement afforded by the smaller diameter snow tires, I'm willing to defer to the experts, and I'm very confident driving my RWD car in any winter conditions.

 

[wallymn]

If you mean smaller than supported I would agree.

HMA fully supports 17 or 18 inch rims on the Genesis Sedan, I wouldn't try 16.