I've been reading through all the winter tyre threads on here and I must admit im a bit stuck, so just wondered if someone could help a tyre muppet out!

My current wheels are 225/45/17 W rated tyres, 17 inch alloys.

I'm going to be getting some winter tyres, so thought some 16 inch steel rims would be good. I thought i had it all figured out and was buying a complete set online as:

205/55/16 H rated winter tyres. But then the Skoda guy mentioned about offset? Do i need to do anything here (speedo related) or not?

Confuddled!

Cheers in advance

Offset it to do with wheels not tyres

The ‘Offset’ of a wheel measures the distance between the wheel centreline and the wheel mounting face and is measured in millimetres.

Example:

A Citroen Saxo and a Ford Fiesta have the same stud pattern, so in theory a Fiesta wheel will fit a Saxo wheel and vice versa right? Wrong.

Although both cars have a positive offset the Saxo’s is very low at around ET15 and the Fiesta’s is higher at around ET38.

This means that the hub mounting face on the Saxo’s wheel is closer to the centerline of the wheel and the Fiesta’s is closer to the outside of the wheel (roadside).

Essentially if the offset of your steels it too big/small it may not clear the brakes and thus won't fit

If you buy official steels from Skoda or some second hand from a VW etc with the same stud pattern they should be fine

Thankyou. The steels im looking at are LK 5 x 112.00 x 57.00 - will these fit. Its a 2007 vrs petrol running 17 inch wheels at present?

You need to know the ET size as well as the wheel width.

Hi there, thanks again, here is full spec:

6 x 16 5 x 112.00 x 57.00 ET: 50.00 5-hole steel wheel (9535)

They are going to sit inside the arches about 1.5” more than your current wheels (assuming they are 7.5” wide)

Ideally on a 205/55/16 you are looking for a 7” wide rim with ET45 ish (for a steel rim they will be about 6.5” wide I guess)

Oh B*gger!

I dont want that, at all. What do people recommend then? Should i just get my tyres swapped over on my current alloys, a friend can do it for me so no cost, then change the summer ones back next year. Or will this degrade the tyre walls?

Or should i be looking for some new alloys to put them on?

Personally I went for a set of s/h Audi alloys from eBay, they can be picked up for less than £200.

If you stick with your alloys currently on the car then you are going to need the slightly dearer 17” tyres obviously.

The choice is yours really.

For comparison the Winters on my Scout are 16x6.5j 5x112x57.00 ET42 - 205/55/16 tyres

As opposed to the originals which are 17x7j 5x112x57.00 ET50 - 225/50/17 tyres

The winters sit very slightly further out.

Edited 5 November, 201213 yr by Anddenton

Thankyou. Might just go for them - its from mytyres.co.uk so should be the right ones. Its a right pain!

www.wheelfitment.eu is pretty good site