Winter tire/steel wheel users - How bad is the MPG hit?
 

Compared to your stock 13" VX rim/tire package, do you see much of a difference, or not enough to even second guess? Has anyone purchased a second set of lightweight wheels for winter use only?

since the vx wheels are in alloy, I use them in winter too, cheaper, its the best solution.

Why don't you want to use your rims in the winter. If you feel the salt will damage the alloy surface all you have to do is bead blast them and they look brand new again.

Well, most people who run 2 sets of wheels use a more sport oriented wheel that has little to no winter performance, and use a softer all weather or winter oriented tire on their cheaper wheels.

For the FE conscious person, however, it could be that in the summer you run a harder, LRR wheel that would had no grip in the winter, and then once more run a softer all weather or winter tire. Likely all weather as they aren't quite as soft as the winters, and wouldn't take as much an FE hit.

I recall someone posting a complaint about the stock LRR tires on the VX, saying that he would stop in hard packed road snow/ice, and if there were even a minor incline, his car would start to slip. Very compelling argument to use softer tires.

I have a set of 155/80 R13 Michelin x-ice silica rubber tires on steel rims, they are 51psi max side wall pressure tires and my summer tires are 165/70 R13 44psi tires on the stock vx rims, now I tend to install snow tires on the front right away when it snows and wait to install them on the rear until we start to have ice and hard pack snow.
There is defiantly a change in performance and my mileage seems to take about a 1-2mpg hit, although it's hard to tell for sure with all 4 snow tires installed because at that point my driving style changes due to snow and ice.
I am willing to take the mpg hit because my snow tires keep me out of the ditch and allow me to get up my driveway and should keep my car dent free longer.

Cause the salt doesn't damage the alloy wheels, so I don't have to pay the extra money for the other rims.

And yes, winter tires are bad for FE, especially if the temperature is not below freezing point, but where I live (Canada) summer tire in winter is not an option, and the governement will past a law next year to force everyone to put them on in winter, a good thing!

yea my fe drops in the winter, partially due to it being cold and partialyl due to unable to NOT spin the tires a bit while driving in the s-10(then theres the occasional "oops my foot slipped and hit the accelerator" moments :p)

yea i have M+S tires on my cars year round, work reat in rain and on any other surface.

Winter tires are not all that bad. I have 2 set of winter tires, and I use one during the summer months. That's what the car came with when I bought it used.

Granted they are inflated at 50 psi, my last tank in the TDI with winter tires lead a tad over 56 mpg with roughly half the tank at 55 mph on the highway.

Yes. I like VX wheels, and I came across an extra set, and I couldn't resist buying them.

What I intend to put on this is the Nokian Hakkapeliitta R, 175/70R13. I would prefer 165, but they don't make it.

$90 is not cheap, but I've had very favorable experiences with Nokian tires on another vehicle. The winter traction is unbelievable. Also this tire is supposedly LRR.

https://www.tiresbyweb.com/pc-7345-12...eliitta-r.aspx

Rims in the winter is the suck, a little bit of temperature change or snowstorm and you gotta scrape all between the spokes to get the snow and ice out or else your wheels are unbalanced like crazy and any speed over 50 shake your car like hell...happened to my like 5 times last winter :(

steelies are best

BIBI where do you live? The salt does eventually oxidized alloy wheels. Another thing you want to be aware of is where you put your counter wieghts. If you put them on the outside of the rim the salt will get behind the weight and pit up the rim bad. All you have to do is look at my rims.

I've been doing tires part-time since the late 1980s.

The ideal scenario is to have a set of dedicated rims/tires for each driving season.

Every time I do a winter-summer changeover, I cringe because rebalancing requires that I remove all of the old weights and install new weights, and there is either a sliver of aluminum removed (hammer-on weights) or a bit of a sticky mess left behind (stick-on weights). Either way, the rim is "damaged" a bit and takes one step closer to being a POS.

And despite the "common knowledge" that aluminum rims are lighter, they aren't THAT much lighter to have any sort of real impact on gas mileage IMO, and steel rims are always more repairable. Steel rims can be sanded & spraypainted, impossible with aluminum. And if the rim is dented, 95% of steel rims can be hammered back into shape but I've seen very poor results when aluminum wheels are "straightened" after they hit a pothole.

For my car, it's steel wheels year-round.

With regards to FE. In my case, I only put snow tires on the front. It's impossible to judge whether this affects gas mileage, because there are other variables which also change at the same time- the air is colder, and the gas changes to a winter formula. So my winter gas mileage is always worse than my summer mileage, and it's possible that snow tires are part of that, but I can't really isolate it.

-BC