sscofield

Bought my wife a new 981 S with 20" Carrera wheels....and now discoverig that no one makes winter/all-season tires that will fit the wheels. Therefore, going to buy a winter set of wheels fitted with winter tires.

Any suggestions on types and sources?

Thx.

Macster

I'm pretty sure Porsche offers a winter wheel/tire set for the car. If so this is probably a pricy way to go, but you might find a dealer selling a set for a discount.

TireRack I believe offers winter wheel/tire sets for these cars. Trouble is at this time of the year these sets might be in short or no supply. I looked for a winter wheel/tire set for my 996 Turbo a few weeks ago and there were none to be had.

markk132

tire rack is the least expensive way to go if you want everything brand new.

I would have recommended searching the forum classifieds but you might not have enough time for that, winter is upon us.

I found a 17" used base cayman wheel set with used winter tires on planet 9 and bought them a few weeks ago. saved hundreds.

onewhippedpuppy

For tires, I used Vrdenstein Wintrac Xtreme as winter tires on my 996 and was very happy. I purchased them on Ebay from a tire store in WI. They rode and drove like a good performance all-season tire. For those that care about Porsche's recommendations, they were one of two winter tires recommended by Porsche for the 996. Vrdenstein is pretty scarce in the USA but popular in Europe.

spyder fan

You don't want 20" snow tires anyway. Call Tire Rack!

Sven76

Continental on my CR, N-spec, with ATS rims. ATS more popular in Europe, but the Conti tires you will get in the US as well. Michelin and Pirelli probably same league, most others are a different league...

873/1960

I've been very happy with my Dunlop SP Winter Sport 3D. They aren't N-Spec, but after finding out that I couldn't feasibly get a matched set of 18" N-Spec tires, and doing many hours of research on the topic, I was unable to find single person that could give a concrete reason why it wouldn't be a good idea to use these besides "Porsche requires N-spec." Most importantly, they outperform all the N-spec tires on many important metrics like wet stopping distance. That is much more important to me than that they be reliable at 149+ MPH.

For winter tires, my advice is to actually avoid N-spec. Most (but not all of them) performed significantly worse than other top winter tires. I suspect this is because most of the N-spec winter tires are rather old designs.

They ride quiet, are decently grippy in warm, dry conditions (obviously they don't compare to summer tires), and are outstanding on both wet and dry cold surfaces. My Boxster S is a daily driver, and if you've heard about the weather in Chiberia in the past two weeks you'll know the tires have been put through a pretty extreme and varied set of conditions. Combined with Porsche's traction control, I actually much prefer my Boxster as a winter car than the Subaru STI with Nokian tires that it replaced.

One important note, like most new tires, these are super slick when you first put them on. I nearly rear-ended someone who stopped suddenly when my tires locked up at under 25mph a few blocks after leaving the tire shop. However, they are really great once you break them in.

-Dave

onewhippedpuppy

N-spec is marketing, buy the best tires for your application.

Vjgtrybno1

First decide what diameter wheel you want to run. I bought an '11 987.2 S, which came with 19" wheels. The Porsche spec for snows was 18", however. There are lots of 18" take-off wheels available for a fraction of the original cost. Then go to the tires. I can second the Dunlop Wintersport 3Ds. Was hoping for Nokian but they don't make the correct size.