Quote:
Originally Posted by 5er_luvver
Could you buy an old set of steel wheels and get some runflats (or conventional) tyres fitted?
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In other European and Scandinavian countries it's common to have a set of steel wheels for winter. One to prevent alloys being damaged by the conditions especially salt on the roads, two because you get better traction in snow with a narrow tyre rather than a wide low profile and so have to go down to a smaller wheel.
The BMW dealers offer to store your summer tyres and wheels during the winter, but if you've got room somewhere to store them yourself it may be cheaper to just buy the tyres alone, you probably don't need to go lower than 18" wheels on a 5er (the UK winter conditions aren't so bad to need narrow tyres on small wheels) but if you're current wheels are bigger you may not be able to get a winter tyre that fits on them so you'll have to get some wheels anyway and the dealer may be the best route for this.
I work in the tyre business and this year the trade has bought/ordered a lot more winter tyres than ever before having been caught out for the last couple of years with bad winters, but it's still a god idea to be sorting them out during September/October - once the average temp drops below 7 degrees C, winter tyres give better grip irrelevant of whether there's any snow.
In terms of whether the winters need to be run-flat just depends on whether you are happy with having non-run flats and no spare. It also depends on what tyres are available in the right size - if you let me know what tyres you're on now I give you some winter size options.