As the title says, I'm stuck trying to decide whether I should keep my 18's or not. Kind of tempting to sell them and put some all-season tires on my 19's later this year. Is there any real negative to that other than I'll be down to 1 set of wheels? I'm not going to end up with that much cash after selling them, I'm more doing this to eliminate the need of swapping wheels and not having to store the extra set. Unless of course all-season tires suck or something, or someone else has some advice from personal experience. Thanks!

 

For the winter, get dedicated snow tires on the 18's and keep the 19's for the summer time.

 

I would say sell the 18"'s. A good set of all seasons should get where you need to go. If not then you would probably need AWD/4wd to get there. Plus if you have an extra set of tpms sensors I would think they would be worth some $$$.

 

Word! I got 20s so I didn't want any salt from the snow on them so had to keep the 18s for winter.

 

I'm going back and forth between stock 18's and 19's, so I'm running under the assumption our wheels can withstand damage from the salt fairly well. If this isn't true then I'm definitely going to keep the 18's so I have a nice looking set of rims at least PART of the year.

Yeah my spare set of 18's has a working set of TPMS sensors.

While a set of 18's with dedicated snow tires would be perfect for the snowy days, MD doesn't get as much snow as NY does so might not be necessary. Whatever came stock on the 18's works fine in the snow, considering how heavy the car is.

Is there any down side to using all-seasons in the summer that summer tires are better for? I'm not like regularly taking this thing to the track or anything. Like I said I won't make much money off this, I can probably only sell my 18's (with very light curb rash) with sensors for ~850 and new tires would cost me what ~600? So the benefit really would be just to not bother with switching them again.

Hmm...

 

Yeah your stock 19s should hold up fine in the winter. You might just get all season tires like the continental dws if you want to avoid the hassle of switching back and forth. If you had aftermarket wheels I would keep 2 sets

 

Cool thanks for the tip. Any negatives about all season tires in the summer? Do they wear faster if you like to drive aggressively or anything like that? I mean is the only benefit summer tires give you better traction on dry pavement? I won't go flying off the road in all-season tires going 80 around a curve will I?

 

I am not sure how your winters compare to mine here in Seattle, but we generally only have to endure a handful of snow days a year. I've always just run some good high performance all seasons and had no real problems even when having to traverse some of the dodgy hills around here. I personally am selling my 19's as soon as I get my 20's since I do not plan on switching tires/wheels out. Never have, never regretted the decision.

FYI - The Continental extremecontact DWS is a great all round tire. Performs amazing in the wet, very good in the snow and at least as good as my Michelin Pilots that came stock on my 07' Civic SI in the dry.

 

Well it just depends on which all season tire you go with really. Some of them won't be as good in dry, wet, scenarios as other strictly summer tires but summer tires aren't worth anything in the snow. I've been researching the reviews and surveys at tirerack.com and and the continental dws is solid all around dry, wet, and snow. I have dunlop sp sport signatures, all season tire, and i'm fine on dry pavement.

 

Thanks for the review on the tires you have, I'll check them out on Tirerack. What size tire did you end up going with? Same as stock or thicker/wider?

 

I would say keep the 18" wheels for the winter depending on where you live. If you live up north where they use salt on roads your rims will pit over time. Here where I live in DC we don't get too much bad weather winter-wise. Although I am looking at replacing the stock 18" rims for some ASA 19" wheels and Michelin rubber for the nicer weather. Cant wait to get rid of the Goodyears.

 

I'm in MD about 30 minutes outside of DC so probably get the same exact weather you do. You gonna keep the 18's for the winter? It hasn't been too bad recently other than the blizzard and what not..

 

Yes, I will keep the stock 18s and run them on the car from probably December through March and then run the 19" ASAs from April to November. I am looking to order the ASAs rims and the Michelin Primacys from Tire Rack in the next week or so. I can't wait to see what this car feels like on decent rubber.

 

Hmm, aight. I think I may just end up holding on to them so the salt doesn't eat away my 19's. This way I can wait to get new tires for a while too. Granted I'd love to see what these rims are like on better tires but at this point I sort of feel like I've spent enough on the Max...for now...