...or is already here!
New car, new boots for the season! I went back and forth on this and finally found a good winter wheel and tire combo and am eager to share with all the poor souls who get to deal with this
But first, I want to express my extreme satisfaction with Rudy Riedel from Tire Rack! As my first foray outside the "safe" choices, Rudy was instrumental in giving me a proper education on wheel offsets and brake caliper clearance. Rudy's been my go to guy at Tire Rack for many years now, he knows a ton and has provided the best service I could ask for, consistently going above and beyond. You can get in touch by emailing
rudy@tirerack.com. If you reach out, tell him Oscar sent you!
Anyhow, my goals with my setup were threefold:
1. Square setup on 18" for rotation and pothole mitigation.
2. A sequel to the best winter performance tire I've ever had.
3. Style I can appreciate and not just deal with - on a budget.
This led me to run this setup:
235/45/18 Pirelli Sottozero 3s on 18x8" ET28 ASA GT14
Having heard all the horror stories from M340i drivers finding the stock 225 square setups bad for traction management, I decided that I should run a slightly wider tire, but not too wide. I figured that a 235 would give me a bit of an edge without compromising snow traction too bad.
After making this choice, I discovered sadly that my trusty Blizzak performance winters (LM series) which had served me well for 7 years were not available in this size. That led me down the research path until I arrived at the Pirelli Sottozero 3s. They had excellent reviews at Tire Rack and they had an interesting bonus - a self-sealing layer for light punctures which didn't seem to compromise the snow and dry performance of the tires. So I'm experimenting on behalf of all of us
Wheels were next. My trusty 17" 5x120 Rial Salernos were no-go from my E90, and they were easily the best winter wheels I ever had. Sticking with 18", I narrowed it down to three flavors of BBS, the XR, SR, and BBS SX. These were all nice, but something just didn't sit well with me on it, especially with the price for a winter wheel. I kept looking and I found an interesting Korean company which honed their craft under BBS using the same techniques which should make their wheels similar in quality.
Having heard the nightmares in my E90 days of buying the wrong wheels to clear big BMW brakes, I was especially cautious. I am pleased to report, no fitment issues whatsoever with this setup!
Enter then the ASA GT14. I wanted a dark silver wheel, but not too dark. This seemed to fit the bill nicely. I've always been a 5-spoke guy but for the first time I came to really appreciate the depth and versatility of a Y-spoke. Effectively an open five spoke in one direction, and a Y-spoke in the other, I loved the visual interest it created.
In the end I pulled the trigger and was super happy when I got the wheels. Except... I was used to running BMW centercaps to keep to as close to an OEM look as I could and the ASA caps are not the same size. I persevered and ended up buying blank caps and OEM centercap emblems and the results worked much better than I expected!
Here's the final results!
Now, my next item is to figure out what's the appropriate tire pressure settings for this setup? I started with 39 front and 45 rear based on the "spirited" setting in the owner's manual but it feels a bit floaty. I'm guessing it will firm up a bit as the tread wears down, but anyone have any good rules of thumb?