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      11-14-2006, 10:18 AM   #1
myZed
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Question Driving Z4 in the snow?

Crazy idea I know, but about to move to a state that has a few snow days in the year. Can I just put snow tires on and get around fine or is the ground clearanace an issue in the Z?
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      11-14-2006, 10:20 AM   #2
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damn good question, most BMWs do well with just a set of snow tires, the Z im not sure about... any owners that have experience and can share? This will be my first winter with a roadster, so im kinda concerned, but i've used other BMWs with just a set of snows without a problem whatsoever. Id also be worried about ruining the paint from all the rocksalt, etc out there in the winter time...
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      11-16-2006, 06:02 PM   #3
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make sure you get 16" wheels for snow wheels, looks dumb but performs great!
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      11-17-2006, 10:08 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quasar View Post
make sure you get 16" wheels for snow wheels, looks dumb but performs great!
Sometimes they look dumb, sometimes not, depending on your car color. For example, black 16" steel wheels don't look half bad (from far away ) on a black car. The darth vader look. Of course then you have all that road salt defacing the rest of the car though.
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      02-17-2007, 02:44 PM   #5
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Hi,

On the Z4 ground clearance thread, I posted a bunch of details on driving the Z4 3.0si/Z4 M Coupé/Roadsters in snowy climates. Including fair bit of information on appropriate snow/winter tires. You can find that post here:

http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthre...676#post708676

Sorry I did not respond in this correct thread, but it kind of touched both subjects as the ground clearance is obviously a huge issue with winter climate driving.

Best regards,

Jussi

Last edited by JK42; 02-17-2007 at 03:15 PM..
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      02-17-2007, 03:03 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Briteboy[iCE] View Post
make sure you get 16" wheels for snow wheels, looks dumb but performs great!
Just remember that many bigger-engined BMW's these days (including series as old as E46 and E39) have a minimum wheel size of 17", such as the 330Ci/330i/330xi/330d/330xd, Z4 3.0si etc. - in the case of M BMW's, 18" is often the minimum because of the brake caliper size. 18" is the current minimum for Z4 M's, M5 and M6. For example, the M5 and M6 have a special wheel type for 18" winter tires, the type number 184:

http://crass.on.ru/bmw/wheels/TMP_wh..._wheel_184.jpg

If you look at it's info page, it mentions that it is specifically an 18" wheel for winter tire use - summer tires on those cars are and should be at least 19":

http://crass.on.ru/bmw/wheels/style/style_184.htm

Your car manual will sometimes detail the minimum wheel size and also your reseller can confirm whether a particular wheel will fit your BMW model or not. You should always check with a reseller when buying new wheels and tires, and whenever possible, purchase only original BMW wheels. You can then buy the tires somewhere else and have them installed on the original BMW wheels if you want to save $$$ on the tires - that's usually wise, because at least over here, the BMW dealers charge huge overprices when it comes to tires, and the original wheels aren't cheap to begin with either. But you can always trust them, when copy wheels (especially copies of BMW's original wheels) can often turn out to be made from shitty materials, may be very heavy, very easy to damage and get dents on and can even be deadly dangerous if they haven't been tested properly at high speeds. This is not to bash known third party wheel manufacturers such as BBS etc. - I'm sure their wheels are fine, but they just don't look good on BMW's in my opinion. IMHO BMW has always been one of the car manufacturers that has had the best looking original wheel selection to go with it's cars, so I have never had a problem finding many very good-looking wheel options to choose from for any BMW model. Perhaps the exception being the M models where the selection is usually quite limited, maybe only 1 or at best 2 models to choose from, but usually the default ones are so cool that you don't want anything else (take for example, the default 19" wheels for the M6.) - and the same wheels kind of become a part of that particular M car type. M3 CSL had it's own special wheels that would set it apart from regular M3s, for example.

Best regards,

Jussi
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