garberfc

I recently traded my 2019 S5 for an RS5. I was hoping to use the same winter wheels / tires. The wheels are OEM 18" shown here on the S5:


The 18" wheels fit over the brake calipers with approximately 3/16" of clearance between the caliper and the wheel barrel.

Is this too little distance? Do the wheels flex when the car is being driven?

Deazy

I've got 18's on my RS5 that are very tight as well. I've had zero problems. You'll be good

DissenTTS

Deazy probably knows better than me, but the wheel spokes may be shaped differently. I once added TTRS calipers to my TTS and the new calipers were too wide for the Audi 19" wheels. I don't know if the RS5 calipers are wider than the S5. But plan a test fitting and be careful of the spokes hitting the calipers (especially the front) if the wheels are not concave enough. If they do, a small spacer should resolve it.

The wheels must not flex much because with spacers I ended up barely fitting a credit card between the wheel face and the calipers on the TTS.

Deazy

18's were even a bit tighter on my S6. The stick on wheel weights would actually hit on the fronts so i had to do thin ones and spread them out.

m444

The 19" hartmann rotor replica wheels had to be spoke balance weighted, so the barrel of the wheel could clear the calipers on my S6.

jf1_

you’ll almost certainly have clearance issues with 18” wheels if the RS5 has carbon ceramic front brakes (included with dynamic plus).

i am running 19x8.5 ET20 with 245/40R19 PA5’s on my 2019 RS5 SB w/CCBs.

garberfc

I have the dynamic package with the red calipers. The wheels turn freely and have approximately 3/16" of clearance. I'm just wondering if the wheels flex under a dynamic load.

jf1_

4mm clearance is generally considered safe between calipers and wheels. i’d send it.

garberfc

4mm is equivalent to 5/32" which gives me an estimated 1/32" of room to spare. Hopefully I won't hear any scraping this winter... 😜🤑

mdrobc1213

You may want to go ahead and just bump up to 19" wheels for the winter and sell your 18" to cover some of the costs. What you don't want is wheel/bearing/caliper issues on the RS5. I had front wheels that were 20" HREs that wouldn't effectively clear my fronts without issues. Ended up selling them after issues with them put my car in the shop for 3 weeks. My point is saving a bit by using the 18" wheels may end up costing you more later if there are clearance issues and it sounds like you're not leaving much room for anything under load/dynamically on the car with the RS5. Take if from all the BMW M3/M4 owners who had ceramics and had brake clearance issues with their wheels and scraping due to very tight clearances...not a problem to have.