going to buy an rx8 within a couple months for the (snowy) northeast region. sorry for the novice questions... i'll be a first time car owner.

1 any suggestions on the cheapest winter tire /wheel setup that works well?

2 can you buy the tire sensors built into the winter setup, and for how much?

3 should i the winter tire/wheel setup from the dealer or another vendor... if another vendor then who?

4 is it easy to switch out wheel/tires yourself or better left to a shop?

thanks.

 

Alll your questions have been covered many times! I hate to say "do a search", but there's dozens of relevant threads that would be far too difficult to sum up in one post.

I'll try to lead you in the right directions, though:

1. Cheapest? no solutions are cheap... The smallest wheels that fit are 17" alloys. You can either buy a Tire Rack winter package of alloy wheels (~129 ea) with 17" winter tires, or find an alternate vendor of such a package. Some people bought 18" winter tires and swapped them on the OEM wheels, many others bought separate 17" wheels and tires. I calculated that if you keep the car longer than 3 or 4 winters, it's cheaper in the long run to buy the 17" wheels, cheaper 17" tires, and save on the cost of having the tires dismounted, remounted, and balanced twice a year.

2. Yes. Posts here have covered it - Tire Rack can arrange this.

3. Generally, a specialized vendor will be cheaper. www.tirerack.com is probably the best place to start.

4. If you have a separate set of winter wheels, it is easier to do yourself.

Please do a search in this forum section and in the Canada regional forum for "winter tire" and you'll find all these points covered many times - excellent discussions on brands, models, sizes, etc.

Regards,
Gordon

 

thank you for the tips... i will check out the website

in fact i did a search for "winter snow tires" and didn't find much, except a bunch of rambling about whether a corvette is better for winter weather than an rx8. gave up after reading through about 10 threads where people just started arguing whether you can drive rx8 in winter. yes, but only with snow tires; yes, with the original tires; no not ever, etc.

i guess you have to read through a lot of those kinds of posts before discovering what you're searching for!