Need to make wheel choice
 

Hello,

I have a 2004 X5 4.4i with OEM 19" wheels. I am still riding on my winter tires, Vredstein Wintertracs (excellent in the snow here in the Midwest even on 19's- and we had LOTS this past winter). I want to swap them out for some performance tires for Spring/Summer. It seems like I have at least these options:

- just put some 19" performance tires on and store the snow tires; but then I have to mount/remount tire to rims twice a year. In my area, with TPMS, that is about $100 times 2 every year I am told. $800 or so is the ballpark for the tires. Plus doing this I am thinking will eventually scratch/chip my current OEM wheels, which are in great shape. The $200 is almost thrown away, in my view.

- buy some new "summer" wheels AND tires; then I just swap the tires/wheel sets twice a year, which I can do myself. But then I have to buy new tires AND wheels now. I would probably get some nice 20's in this case, since they would be strictly for good weather. But it is a $$$ thing. I figure $1500-2000 for replica OEMs + good performance tires, vs. $3000-$3500 if I do OEMs. I guess it could be anywhere in between for some other aftermarkets, or much higher for really nice forged wheels (the ones I REALLY want );).

- I could just wait for the winter tires to wear out, and get some all seasons and hope they work well on my OEM 19 wheels year-round. I probably don't get excellent traction in snow like I did this year (which was really nice, we got some BIG snows) nor the performance of summer tires, by definition.

Anybody else struggle with this choice, and what did you decide and why?
I will post another note RE replica wheels.

Thanks,
TTM