If it is October, its time for a snow tire thread!
 

My manual says that I can put 18" carerra III wheels and winter tires on (standard steel brakes). My dealership is trying to sell me a second set of 19" turbo wheels, or just replace the rubber. I can't imagine changing rubber twice a year with these stiff side walls. Something must give.

Any 997 TT drivers with 18's out there? The difference is probably worth about $5000 to me.

I would just swap some winter 19s, put your others back on in the spring. There is no sidewall problem in doing so. I run 19s(snows) on my stockers for winter now. The advantage of 18s is a marginally thicker sidewall. 5k is a rip and a half for stock wheels and snow tires.
The easiest thing, and cheapest, would be to call Tire Rack and just order his winter wheel and tire combo, arrives mounted at your door in a day or two for about 1/2 of what your dealer is telling you.

19" snows work well. Unless you plan on driving exclusively on snowy roads I wouldn't go the 18" route unless someone gave you a set of tires and wheels for free or close to it.

I checked out the pricing on tire rack. With duty and taxes, comes to about $3250 mounted with TPMS sensors in each wheel. This is for 19's and is a couple hundred more than the dealer offers for 18's.

You can also get a 18" package from TR as well, i'm sure much cheaper than the dealers. GL either way.

I'm approaching my 3rd winter with an 18" package that I got from Damon at TR. The only downside is that I put on a 32mm spacer in the rear to make the car look a little more stock - this is because my rears are 265mm in the winter. The fitment for the C4S is the same as TT (no PCCB here either).

If I damaged one of my winter rims, I wouldn't lose any sleep as they were not very expensive.

They work pretty well as my "worst commute ever" demonstrates:

http://coochas.com/pics/SnowStorm/1.jpg
http://coochas.com/pics/SnowStorm/2.jpg
http://coochas.com/pics/SnowStorm/3.jpg

32 mm spacers? This is over 1.25 inches. Yikes! Spacers are used when the wheel offset is wrong. Unsprung weight and greatly increased stress on wheel bolts. This is for appearance?

The rule is to go as small and narrow as your car allows... If you can do 18s with 265s at the back, that's the ticket. Big, wide tires don't cut into snow very well.

Wow. If nothing else, this post teaches me that as bad as my brief commute seems, someone else has had it far worse. Average of 2 mph for almost 4 hours? That is shockingly awful. Hopefully there was a refreshing beverage awaiting your arrival.

Did you put that on the lap timer / clock? Or does it normally read 911?

I ended up buying a used set of stock wheels and putting 19" Pirelli Sottozero snows on them.

Late last week I had to actually mount them on the car--not because of snow, but because of a screw being embedded in my summer tires. Nevertheless, the snow tires road nicely and were a bit quieter than my PS2s.

What I really like is the fact that the looks of the car didn't change. Around here, I will endure snow tires for about 6 months and I didn't want to look to change.

I think the Sottozero's will be a hit.

IIRC I went right for the fridge to get a frosty. That storm caught Boston completely unprepared. The reason it took so long to get anywhere was because dozens of cars were left abandoned in the middle of the roads!

A trick I learned on RL. Several attempts and voila 9.11 secs.

Yes appearance. With the big hips on a 997 C4S, that much less rubber in back truly looks goofy.

Keep in mind that these wheels/tires are for winter use only....not the track! Frankly there is probably less unsprung weight compared to my stock 305/19s because the winter set up is 265/18 (i.e. smaller rim diameter, 40mm less width, smaller width rim). The spacer weighs about 3 lbs.

I'm looking at the 19" Pirelli Sottozero to put on my Factory wheels. I have my PS2's on Champion wheels. Do you really like the Pirelli's? Did you give any thought to Nokian's?