Snow Tyres.. 16" vs 18"

All things being equal (which they never are) I am trying to decide on which snows to get for my Disco. I have a set of worn out snows on a set of stock 18" rims (that I bought from somebody here, whose name I cannot remember) or I could get my hands on the 16" rims that the earlier disco 1 used and go with tyres to fit them.

According to Tirerack.. the 16" would be 255/65/16s and the 18"s would be 255/55/18. Is it worth going with 16"s for snow? I am pretty sure the rim cost would be a wash as I could sell off my extra set of 18"s to offset the price of the 16"s.

More sidewall=more better, lowers the likelihood of junking a tire in a pothole hiding under the slush.

I minus size winter wheels/tires when possible to get higher side walls/narrow tread width

If there's a big difference in tire availability or price, decide based on that. Realistically, in SUV sizes, either will have enough sidewall that I wouldn't worry about it. The 18s might be a little less mushy feeling when the pavement is dry, but I doubt you'd notice much difference beyond that.

On our Explorer, we go from 20" rims in summer to 17"s for winter tires and up a lot of sidewall.

I have 18's with +2 sized tires on my A4 in the summer months and revert to the original equipment 16" wheels with -1 sized snows in the winter. Same rolling diameters.

The narrower tread width helps with grip in snow and on ice and the taller sidewall helps wheels and tires survive the inevitable pot holes and frozen-to-the-pavement chunks of ice one encounters in the winter months.

I would reduce wheel diameter as much as I could depending on brake fitment for winter tire use so as to have the extra sidewall height.

wclark wrote: The narrower tread width helps with grip in snow and on ice

Yesno. Narrower tires will be better in slush or a few inches of soft, fresh snow. Wider tires will grip better on hardpack, ice or in snow too deep to dig all the way through to something under it.

In my case, I run narrower snows than my summers, but they're still slightly wider than stock.

Yeah, I've found the whole pizza cutter snow tire thing to not be all it's cracked up to be. My next set will be stock width.

In both cases you should have a reasonable sized sidewall, so I wouldn't fret about it too much. I'd just look at the total cost of each setup. I was previously running 17" winter tires and going to 18" was roughly the same cost. I haven't noticed any difference worth mentioning.