[Biturbos4] Wheels - advice and experience
Quincy Chiang
b5quattro at shaw.ca
Sun Mar 13 22:52:30 EST 2005
Grant,
I've never heard of anyone bending the stock Avus wheels, given they are approx. 28+ lb each, and are known to be damn strong! Then you went on and bent a few 16" wheels with even squishier tires? I know many people have 16" AT Italia S5 wheels as winters and have had no problems with them. Man you must drive on some really really bad roads!!
For OE wheel options, you can go with any 16" wheels offered on the A6 with 2.7t because that car has the same front brakes as ours. There should be 2 types, a 5-spoke design and a 6 split-spoke design, both are 16x7. Do a search on Audiworld to see what they look like if you don't know.
There's also another OE wheel that clears our front brakes. It's not offered as a standard wheel but it's sold by dealers as a specific winter rim for cars with the HP2 brakes. These are 16x6.5, extra narrow for mounting 205 or even 195 section width winter tires for good winter traction. I have them and here's what they look like on my car:
http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/41218/100-0022_img_small.jpg
I know they're not they prettiest things, but they are quite heavey duty and I seriously doubt they can be bent given the extra squishy sidewall due to the narrow wheel width. The previous owner got these as part of his deal when he bought the car instead of getting a discount, so I'm not sure what they cost.
HTH and good luck with whatever new rims you get!
Quincy
PS: Wilson, interesting info. Although I thought only the RS4 in Britain had problems with bent rims, didn't know the regular S4's had problems too, at least I've never heard of it until now.
----- Original Message -----
From: northrup <northrup at crazybug.com>
Date: Sunday, March 13, 2005 7:35 am
Subject: Re: [Biturbos4] Wheels - advice and experience
> Grant:
>
> I recall reading something about the S4's with aluminum uprights
> in
> regard to wheels. Note that i do not recall the source of the
> information, so it should be taken only as a possibility, and not
> fact.
> In any event, IIRC, it went something like this:
>
> Audi used aluminum uprights on the S4, but then there were some
> broken
> suspension issues. To resolve this, softer (lighter?) wheels were
> used
> in conjunction with the aluminum uprights. This resulted in
> many bent
> wheels. After this Audi essentially threw in the towel.
> Aluminum
> uprights were discontinued in favor of a stronger (heavier) setup.
>
> Stronger (heavier?) wheels were added. The result: more unsprung
> weight,
> but less damage.
>
> So, all that means if you are shopping for another set of wheels,
> you may
> wish to consider the 2001+ variety. Then again, if your car has
> aluminum
> upgrights, you may wish to continue with softer wheels!
>
> Nothing is ever simple in the performance arena. :)
>
> wilson
>
> On Sat, 12 Mar 2005, Grant wrote:
>
> > I'm looking for the group's collective experience with wheels.
> > I bought 4 snows and 16" (16 x 7 x 35 ET) AT Italia S5 wheels
> from the
> > tire rack, and have bent several of them - while bending only 1
> > original avus wheel. These things seem to be very weak/soft.
> I'm
> > about to throw in the towell and replace them, if I can figure
> out what
> > is better in the long run.
> >
> > I'm curious what experience people have had with other
> aftermarket or
> > 16" OE (used, presumably) wheels, especially RONALs (which made
> several
> > of the OE wheels).
> >
> > Good/bad.
> >
> > Thanks, much.
> >
> > Grant
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Biturbos4 at www.audifans.com
> > http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/biturbos4
> >
>
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