17" or 18" Winter Tires on 2006 X5 4.4
 

Hi guys. Looking to get some snow tires for my 2006 X5. Any benefits of going with a 17" setup vs 18"? I found a deal on a set of 17" style 57 OEM rims that could work nicely. Otherwise, I will just replace my current tires with snow tires and get new summer wheels / tires next season. Thanks in advance.

A plethora of opins and winter experience here on the Board...

I ran those 17s with dedicated snow tires for 5 winters in the
5-6,000 ft mtns of western NC: they made my lower tech,
non-X Drive run like a Mtn Goat, up and down our very steep
snowy, icy inclines. Nothing will beat the 17s, imo.

Otoh, since you have the 18s, quality snows will perform well in
that size too; the only benefit to getting the set of 17s is it
precludes the wheel geniuses swapping out tires on your 18"
rims, twice a season, and less detrimental winter effect on your
stock wheels.
GL, mD

Use some dedicated winterwheels. There are a lot of 18 style 58s out there for sale including mine, I have Dunlop M3 winter tires already on them.

Advantage of 18s is they will fit a 4.8 if you ever go that route and they look better too. :-)

Your plan B sounds good too, get some 19s or 20s for summer.

We just went with Winter Tires on our 18" factory alloys (Style 131's), after buying a set of 19" (Style 63's) wheel/tires over the summer. I can tell you going from the 19" down to the 18" visibly is somewhat of a shocker, and going down to 17's is going to look even smaller, so my vote would be put Winters on your current wheels and keep an eye out for a set of 19 or 20's for the summer, but functionally no issue with the 17's..