When the OEM Potenza RE050A's wear down and it's time to buy a new set...
 

When the stock Potenza RE050A's (225/50/18 front, 245/45/18 rear) wear down and it's time to buy a new set of tires, what will you do (assuming you stay with 18" wheels)?

I searched tirerack for different options, and the only MATCHING set they carry are the Potenza RE050A's. Don't get me wrong - I think these are great tires, but I wish we had more options.

The only 225/50/18 tires that tirerack carries are the Potenzas ($179 each), Goodyear Eagle LS-2 (much cheaper at $93 each, but the tire sucks for performance handling), Blizzaks (a winter tire, which I definitely don't need here in California).

As for the rears, tirerack carries a plethora of tires that come in 245/45/18.

1) Will you change the size of the fronts in order to have a greater selection of tires to choose from (fyi, tirerack carries tons of tires in 225/45/18)? If so, what size will you change to (hopefully one that'll most closely match the diameter of the stock 225/50/18's so not to throw off the speedometer too much)?

2) Would you consider staying with the stock size Potenzas in front, but get a different model tire for the rears? If so, would this have some sort of adverse effect on the car's handling?

A bit off topic, but can you rotate the tires since they different sizes?

Get some Toyo T1R's or BFG KDW2's or Michelin PS2's or what not. Im sure you can find them somewhere. Contact Status or F1 Motorsports.

i'll probably get the same tires again. how many miles are people expecting? 12k miles?

I had Toyo T1-R's on my A4 and I hated them. They are no where near as good as the T1-S's were.

Oh and I doubt I'd get these tires again since the tread wear rating is so incredibly low.

Not front to back, like a normal rotation. To rotate, you'd dismount the tires and switch left side tires to the right side.

I plan on changing the tire size up front to come more in line with the rears. There is a 20 mm difference btwn front and back now, I want to cut that down by 10 mm, so I would probably end up getting either a 245 front (doubtful that it will fit on a 7.5" rim though) and 255 rear. Or just get a 235 and keep the 245 rear.

I've had good experience with BFG KDW 2, but you say Tirerack doesn't have them with out fit. If you find em, they're worth the money.

If you do dismount, it would be in your best interest to take it to a shop with a Hunter Road Force balancing machine. For whatever reason, on tires profiled at 50>below, vibration through the steering wheel and chassis is an issue at speeds around 60+.

Myself and quite a few other people that I know of have had similar issues. In my case, every tire that was balanced with the Road Force machines are smooth up to top speed.

Personally, I'm just going to leave the tires as is until they wear out and then replace them with an all season tire (maybe snow) for my winter wheels.

Dude, how long did it take u to wear them out?

I think the RE050's are unidirectional, so you won't be able to swap any tire at all

So that means if we ever wanted to swap brand we'll have to ride on mismatch tires for a while :(

Wow...is this true? I didn't consider that when I ordered a Sport.

Hmmm...justification for getting the same sized 19s or 20s all around? :D

if a suspension is set up properly, rotating is unessessary. generally, most audi, bmw, and porshce manuals tell you NOT to rotate tires. generally, gm, ford and chrysler tell you TO rotate. it is often to make up for poor suspension.

keep in mind, rotating is meant to 'average out' the wear... so the handiling will be MUCH worse immediately after you rotate until it wears down to the avg'd out.

personally, i HATE rotating for that reason.

rotating does two things:

*makes it handle worse for a period of time (safety and performnace)
*allows you to replace all 4 worn tires instead of 2 now, and the other 2 later (big deal...)

Does anyone know if the front wheel wells are large enough to accomodate the rear rim? For instance...could someone buy a set of rear 18" sport wheels, throw some 245s on them, and mount them on the front? Would they clear with no modifications to the inner fender well?

The alignment is my Audi was a joke! It was aligned to spec, but my car would eat the inside edges of the front tires. No rotations and my Toyo T1-R's would have been trash in less then 10,000 miles.

It actually wasn't an isolated problem. Other people on the A4 forum had the same issues.