Learn me finding used wheels

SWMBO and I just bought a house at the end of a 1/2 mile gravel road, uphill, and it occasionally snows around here.  So now I am looking for snow tires and wheels for some relatively pedestrian vehicles, a 2007 Grand Caravan and a yet-to-be-purchased 4WD SUV (looking at an Expedition at the moment).

The easy thing to do is to go to Tire Rack, pick a tire+wheel package and have them delivered, mounted and balanced.  But the thought occurred to me that maybe it would be a bit cheaper to find some used wheels.  I googled a bit to read up on all the measurements involved (diameter, width, bolt pattern, offset, center bore).

What's the best way to find wheels that would work?  Besides searching Craigslist for wheels from exactly the same vehicle, is there a reasonable way to cross reference and figure out which other wheels would fit?

Try car-part.com for junkyards with wheels for the vehicle you're trying to fit? That doesn't help with getting you measurements so you can search more generically, sorry.

Since you have your vehicle's stock wheel info, you're halfway there. If you search for wheels by bolt pattern on craigslist/eBay, you'll start to get an idea of other vehicles that share similar wheel specs. Some light internetting to confirm specs and you're set. Undesirable vehicles or ultra-common vehicles with shared specs mean you can find something affordable that someone just wants out of their house.

For example, my daily Kia (Will)Forte has a 5x114.3mm (or 5x4.5") bolt patten. Right now my winter tire setup is chinese offbrand snows from simpletire.com (great retailer for cheap tires of any brand) on Jeep XJ alloys. Looks nutty, but I paid $50 for the wheels and something like $170 shipped for the tires IIRC.  I take everything to a local tire shop and have them mount/balance and throw them on when I need them. Little more work on your end, but you save.

Also, a quick search for 2007 caravan wheels shows that you can get new steels for 44/ea. Not bad if you don't want the hassle of craigslist.

I did the tire rack option for my Elantra and it worked well.  It came with alloys but I went with Steelies  and hubcaps for the winter, and it was nice that they mounted, balanced and included a set of new lugs.  

Tire rack didn’t have anything for the Sedona except 20” wheels that were outrageously priced. Since I couldn’t get the steel wheels through tire rack, I used car-part to get a set of oem steel wheels with the tpms sensors for $40/ea 

In reply to Ransom :

Thanks.  There are some OEM wheels for $50 about 20 miles away.

In reply to ebelements :

I hadn't thought of searching by bolt pattern.   Searching CL that way didn't find any exact matches but the results were a lot closer than what I had found before.

I didn't see steelies for that cheap, but I didn't look very hard.

facespace marketplace has taken over a lot of the craigslist market, fyi.

LKQ has an online store, and they ship for free over $50 dollars, no matter how many yards the parts come from.

I ordered a full set of 18" OEM wheels with the TPMS for the Xterra for under $200 delivered last year.

You might be able to get a set of takeoffs for less on FB or CL but this was way less hassle. For those two I search by bolt pattern and size.