New guy - a little help please......

[Ken]

My wife just went thru the worst driving winter of her life and I must admit, even I had a ton of trouble drivin' in the snow with her '06 4.4i, X5. It has the sport package and 19in. wheels with brand new Michelins (255's and 285's) that we got intentionally, right in the middle of our snow season......nice idea, but didn't work worth a darn.

My questions are: (1) Will reducing the size of my wheels definitively help while drivin' on snow/ice? (2) Is it better to go to a 17in. or 18in. from a 19in. wheel to have the best opportunity to realize better road handling on snow/ice? (3) Is there any other conversions/change outs/additions of any type that I will need to have done to switch over from 19's to either 17's or 18's ? (4) Is the fact that the rear (285's) tires are so much wider than the front (255's) part of the reason our X5 sucks so bad on the snow/ice and if so, do you guys run the same width tires on your winter change-out tires? (5....and lastly) Does the "Sport Pacakge" have anything to do with our X5 being so useless in the winter as opposed to non-sport packaged X5's? I ask this because a guy on EBay is sellin' some mint 18in. stock BMW wheels and some new Dunlops for a reasonable price and he specifically pointed out that sport packaged X5's might as well be left in the garage during the winter if they didn't ride on those wheels and tires. Now I understand the sales pitch here.....I'm unpleasant, not stupid, but I'm just wondering if our sport packaged X5 contains certain options (suspension, etc.) that may enhance issues of driving on snow/ice?

I appreciate any and all posts as I am not willing to have my wife suffer through another winter like that. It was, at best, very dangerous for her to be drivin' that X5 set up as such......and she really loves her X5.

Thanks much,

Ken