MP4.2+6.0

I thought I would post my snow wheel fitment having gotten them on last weekend. A few pic's below.

Originally I thought I would get some 20's in due course and run them for summers, converting the OE 19's to snows. It would have been simpler of course just to get the OE 20's with the vehicle since I ordered it and did Euro delivery. For those of you who know the Hybrid at all though, they usually come with an aero style turbine wheel in 19" or optional 20"s that 9 out of 10 people would probably pass on. Hence my "safer" choice of the low volume "Offroad" 19" five spoke style in my autosig below. I also didn't want to pay the optional up charge for the not very desirable 20" Hybrid aero look, so saved my $ for the usual after sale focus.

These winter wheels are Audi Q5 factory. Audi calls them "Queen Anne" style. But, I've never seen them before. One of those wheels in a brochure at the dealership parts counter probably that you glance at once and then never see again. Factory for the Q5--ET33, 20 x 8.5, correct center diameter, use the same factory Q5 trim caps and wheel bolts, etc. Priced like all the other OE wheels at the parts counter--$$+.

In my case, I happened on them via eBay with a buy it now auction at just over $1900 as a compete wheel and tire set and so grabbed them in literally the first 20 minutes it was posted back in late summer. Someone apparently had bought them (for big bucks) via a dealer for an SQ5, but then backed out of the vehicle purchase and the shop involved dumped the wheels. The wheels were never mounted on a vehicle, totally pristine and with high quality Dunlop 3D 255/45's. The tires themselves appear to be mounted at the Audi factory; they are not conventionally shop mounted, have the German style factory weights and have not even a single mark you would find almost no matter what with normal tire mounting equipment. Price wise, they continue to fit in my price target for OE wheel sets (including tires and mounting; usually they are take offs or lightly run) where I pay somewhere in the $1-200 zone per wheel effectively (net of the TireRack tire price and the mounting cost), but get OE product and a complete set. Same thing I have been doing for 10+ years with the A8 and A6.

The Dunlop 3D is a "performance" winter, V rated. I have used them and their predecessors on my A6 4.2 and some other vehicles extensively. It is my preferred choice; in the Q5 it's only in some of the typical fitments/sizes, but 255/45-20 happens to be one of them. Given most of my winter use is coastal CA quasi dry and well above freezing, a performance tire that can go up into the Sierras to a second home with up to 200" of snow a year, hills and slopes, ice on local streets and those sorts of things are my blend of needs. I know the performance history from my A6 at 300HP, also with 255's and weighing several hundred pounds less than the Hybrid. So far, as expected on the (dry) roads, a quiet tire as winters go and that rides very well and with decent performance. Even though I also migrated from the 235's to 255's in this step and went from A/S OE Michelins to these, the tire noise step up was very marginal and hard to detect. I've had other snows on minivans in the past that were night and day more noisy and less comfortable in dry mode use. On the performance side, they are at least what came off feel wise, and probably more given the size tweak.

Net, works for me, got O.E. and I found the one time price opportunity with my preferred performance winter tires quite compelling.

Rlk1

Those are beautiful wheels! Looks awesome on your Q5. Never seen a Audi wheel style like those before. Great find, and very unique.

MP4.2+6.0

See the picture below. I noticed some fine spray paint marks on the inside tire sidewalls right in line with the German wheel weights. Notice the very faint blue spray dot high up on the right, and then the more obvious beige (actually white) dot lower down. After I looked at all the wheels I concluded the paint color tells them the specific weight to use at the point of the paint dot (camera lens perspective shifts it slightly). Not sure how to decode where it goes laterally, though it could be it was marked under the weight at the factory somehow. Notice the total absence of marks on the whole drum area too. All the wheels were like this. On Audi factory wheels on my 2006 A8, there were some minor *****/grab type marks that I think came from their mounting machine. Now there are absolutely zero. They must have a very substantial machine with some tooling that matches to the wheel (or hub center?) very closely. A guess is the weights may be machine applied in a very automated process, though the paint color coding might suggest a human is involved.

Having done the factory tour at Ingolstadt back in July (on their most automated new A3 line), the tire mounting was apparently happening below ground in a staging area, since they were coming up from below four at a time at each wheel corner, and then being lifted by an arm to the hub where a person with a big simultaneous lug bolt tightening driver was getting them on in basically one continuous motion. It was the very next step after the drivetrain and chassis were unified at the preceding station.

When I pulled off the original factory 19" wheels on my Q5, I found the same kind of paint marks associated with where the weights are and in various colors. A bit faded, but the car hasn't seen that much rain so far so they were clearly there. It's how I concluded you could i.d. a true factory mounted wheel if still pretty new, including in these Audi OE winters if they come as Audi complete set ups.

MP4.2+6.0

Thanks!

spijun

This is a standard model for the Q5 MY2009-2012: 8R0601025D
http://www.jimellisaudiparts.com/pro...R0601025D.html