Winter tyres on 333m wheels

[asoni]

My x5 came with the 223 19” wheels which I quickly swapped for the 333 20” ones.

Will there be a significant difference between a set of 223’s with winter tyres vs 333’s with winter tyres? Obviously the smaller the tyre the better, but the 223’s aren’t exactly small anyway so I’m thinking the difference won’t be that big to justify keeping the 223’s just for winter use?

[X5Sport]

I have 19” winter and 20” summer and yes there is a difference, and yes even these larger tyres are fine with winter rubber on.  My 19” set is also a staggered setup and in your position I would hang onto them and swap the tyres out.  I still had my E53 as well as the X6 so out the original 19” tyres onto the E53 which gave it a brand new set (albeit rft) of rubber.

[asoni]

The main thing is that I want to avoid putting the 223 wheels on my car for 6 months of the year as I really don’t like them, I’d much rather keep the 333’s all year round and alternate the tyres every 6 months.

So the question is if BOTH sets of wheels had winter tyres, will there 223’s be significantly better?

[X5Sport]

Less risk of sliding as the ground pressure per sq/inch is better.

I don’t particularly like my 19” 258 Style, and you won’t need them on for 6 months.  Mine are on from end November, early December until March.  And they get the road salt leaving my 214 wheels for everything else.

The 19” set will give better traction - hence BMW offering 19” non-staggered as the standard winter setup.  Just think of that set as ‘sacrificial’ 

[sid10]

The one problem people never think about is the runflats are really only to be put on the rim once, alternating between summer and winter tyres on the same rim is not recommended by BMW.
If you don't like the 223 alloys buy a different set that you like with winters on!

[asoni]

^ that’s a good point which I didn’t know about. Hopefully I will have switched to non run flats by next winter so along with non rf winter tyres, it won’t be a problem switching between them.

If I’ve still got rf on though, I’ll stick with separate wheels to avoid constantly changing tyres.

[CondorX5]

No car looks good in a ditch, however much you “like” the wheels! 

[asoni]

^very true!