Steel Wheels & Winter Tyres for Polo 1.4

[Golemsmate]

I have looked through similar threads on this subject and my mind has boggled with the different sizes. I'm hoping that starting a new thread and asking directly might help me understand!

I'm not very clued up on wheel sizing and not 100% sure what would be good for my car. I have a 2012 polo 1.4 petrol with the "knight" alloys size 215/45 R16 at the moment. As it's getting colder I would like to put on a set of steel wheels, with winter tyres but there are so many choices of wheel size I've got quite confused. I don't want to spend £400+ and find they don't fit!

What would your recommendations be for both the size and where to buy from?

[wigit]

if you use mytyres or openeo you can select the model of your car and take it from there, mytryres more expensive steel is the KFZ that openeo sell, mytyres come with tyres fitted and so work out a bit cheaper

Some info in this thread about sizes etc, i went for 15"s on the Blue GT so it cleared the brakes so tyre sizes in there as well, you just need to decide on speed ratings

http://www.uk-polos.net/view ... 56&t=60248

VW brochure also gives sizes for 15s

http://www.volkswagen-zubehoer.de/filea ... 2_engl.pdf

[ben4012]

This is the relevant document to check all vw wheel and trye combinations. I found it just after I needed it!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/21518r1xzs7k2 ... andard.pdf

[wigit]

This is the relevant document to check all vw wheel and trye combinations. I found it just after I needed it!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/21518r1xzs7k2 ... andard.pdf

superb reference document

[Golemsmate]

Thank you for the information! I'm quite surprised that they recommend 14 inch wheels for winter tyres, I thought 15 would look small!

Is it a bad idea to go for used steel wheels? Pricing it up it will cost £200 for new alloys and another £250 for the tyres

[RUM4MO]

Thank you for the information! I'm quite surprised that they recommend 14 inch wheels for winter tyres, I thought 15 would look small!

Is it a bad idea to go for used steel wheels? Pricing it up it will cost £200 for new alloys and another £250 for the tyres

It all depends on what you are trying to achieve, the recommendation for using 14" wheels will come from the norm of fitting narrower tyres for better slush/ice/snow grip performance in cold weather - larger diameter wheels only came along when wider lower profile wheels/tyres became the norm, also in higher performance cars, the larger diameter wheels allow for larger brake discs to get used, not an issue in your case.

As previously suggested, places like mytyres do a steel wheel + tyre deal, which means you get the correct wheel in for that car.

For what it is worth, I have just put the winter wheels/tyres back on my wife's Polo 9N, they came form mytyres a few years ago and still have a lot of life in them, but they are Michelin Alpin A3 so they cost quite a lot, always let the car get where it needs to go in winter, and will last a few years yet, so in my case "job done".

Buying cheaper winter tyres might work, or it might not, depends how much you need to use your car in winter and where you live, as for buying second hand wheels from another model that might fit, I found that a bit too risky to find that they did not fit well enough, then needing to buy more!

Remember, using smaller diameter tyres will end up working out cheaper than larger diameter sizes.

[RayC]

Hi chaps
I use a Polo 6R for tyre testing as its the main core of my business, a cautionary tale, you get what you pay for with winter tyres - true with any tyre so please if you are making the effort to fit winter tyres please choose a reputable brand, if you want to do some research please look here - i know its german but its easy enough to understand http://www.adac.de/infotestrat/tests/re ... geId=31821

The test was done on a Polo (i replicate these tests hence having the Polo) this size was the 185 60 R15 size, you could use the 175 70 R14 size but as your main driving with the winter tyres will be on wet tarmac the 15" size is probably a better bet for the quicker cars (1.4 and above) although 14" will still be fine, but i cant say which brakes may cause an issue on things like GTI so please check first
the 14" steels are not expensive from the main dealer if this is your prefered route, or you can tyre getting something like a team dynamics alloy the ones with 10 holes have the 100 and 120 PCD drilled so they fit polos and golfs so better for reusing/resale

i do recomend winter tyres but suitable quality ones, the linglong winter tyres were beaten in the Evo winter tyre test by a Conti summer tyre so beware of poor quality!!

if your interested i will be using the 15" Goodyear tyres on my Polo this winter

Cheers

[Golemsmate]

Hello everyone and thank you for all the comments. After much searching on eBay I found 4 15 inch steel wheels with continental ts800s (size 185 60 15). Got it for £215 which I thought was reasonable, as the tyres look as new.

Just got to find time to put them on

Thanks for the help!