I want to take my recently acquired 6000 mile Fabia 110 SE L to the Alps in a few weeks and need to fit winter certified tyes. My initial investigation shows that the car has 16" 7J 215/45 alloys with original Dunlop SP Sport Maxx  low profile tyres (pictures at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1EoGWB53S9STnFBM0xjQm1jMms ) and a 15" 6J steel spare.

For this particular use low profile wide tyres are inappropriate because of poor snow performance and high risk of wheel damage from kerbs hidden by snow, with the additional worry of an unmatched and ironically (in this case) superior spare. Sourcing suitable low profile winter tyres seems also to be problematic/expensive.

I have already started a discussion on the Fabia III forum on getting a second set of steel wheels matching the spare and putting winter tyres on those.

However there is possibly a better solution, which is effectively a swap and me using 15" 6J alloys from an SE 110 and fitting all season tyres with the mountain/snowflake symbol so loved by gendarmes at the bottom of snowy mountain access roads. I have found these sort of tyres to be very good over the past five years on an Octavia where I got 40000 miles out of them. If there is someone out there with a 110 SE on 15" alloys (preferably with well worn tyres as I will just ditch them) who wants to do a swap to upgrade to 16" low profile as fitted to the SE L, then perhaps we could do a deal at significantly less cost than the factory fitted option, with my nearly new tyres thrown in. This would all depend on condition and practicality as I live near the Beds/Herts/Bucks border and occasionally visit Kent/Sussex and the Coventry area. Penzance might be too far afield to sort this out.

I would be grateful if anyone can tell me of their experience in trying to do this sort of thing and if anyone is interested in discussing how the 'swap' might work, please message me,  I think you just address it to patrick.waring using messenger accessed from the envelope symbol above.

Sorry, I used the wrong link above.

 

 

See the pictures at

 

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1EoGWB53S9STnFBM0xjQm1jMms&usp=sharing

An update, I have a set of steel wheels with snow tyres now, but would still be interested in a swap of my 16 inch for 15 inch alloys (changing four wheels twice a year is not my idea of fun.....)

That's the first thing I did when I bought my car. Some guy bought my wheels (16") and tyres and put them into an Ibiza MK5. He gave me his (15"), which I still have. Too bad the MQB wheels are tighter and don't clear the brakes without a spacer. I just have them in storage...

 

I ended up replacing the steelies I had originally fitted with a set of Golf IV Avus wheels. From my research, they are the lightest 15" wheels that fit properly, other than the Audi forged Pepperpots...

 

I was about to buy a set, but they sold and I've been unable to get more.