Burke

For anyone who is considering dedicated snow tires and wheels for their Q7, I have some experience that might help. For the past eight years in Colorado and South Dakota my family has been driving on studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta snow tires in the winter, first with an A4 (mine) and then with a Land Rover Discovery II (wife's). I decided to start purchasing dedicated snow tires because I am an avid skier and try to head for the mountains whenever it starts snowing hard. Before running snow tires, that was often a stressful experience. Since making the switch, I am rarely nervous driving in the snow.

For the A4 and Discovery, I swapped tires back and forth each winter and spring on their original wheels. Although it was cheaper in the short run than purchasing dedicated wheels, the aggravation of dealing with local tire shops was not worth the savings. I've used different tire shops, and none of them were any good. They rarely finish within the estimated time, often damage the wheels, don't mark the rotation on the tires even when asked ahead of time, and it still costs $100 per car per year. The last time I brought the Discovery in for the switch, the shop used a socket that was 1/16" too large and ruined $225 worth of lug nuts.

When I bought the Q7 for my wife, I decided to purchase dedicated wheels and snow tires so I could change them myself each season and avoid the tire shop nightmare. I didn't know if the Q7's tire pressure monitoring system could be temporarily disabled, so I bought sensors and the required valve stems as well. Following is a breakdown of the total cost:

$736 - 4 x 235/60R18 Nokian Hakkapeliitta SUV snow tires without studs (tiresbyweb.com - Tire Factory in Michigan)
$1,270 - 4 x 18 inch Q7 winter wheels 4L0-071-498-E (dealer)
$426 - 4 x tire pressure monitoring sensors 4F0-907-275-B (dealer)
$113 - 4 x TPMS valve stems 4D0-601-361 (dealer)
$22 - 20 x grey plastic lug nut caps 4L0-601-173-Z37 (dealer)
$3 - 1 x lug nut cap removal tool 8D0-012-244-A (dealer)
$45 - mount tires to wheels and balance (local tire store)
$0 - mount wheels to Q7 (self)

$2,615 - Total

Although I have been happy with the studded Hakkapeliittas on my other vehicles, I decided to go without studs this time in order to have a quieter ride on dry pavement. We also drive in Minnesota, which prohibits studs. The Hakka SUVs will accept studs, but you have to make the decision before you start driving on them because tire stores will only install studs in new tires. I chose the 235/60/18 size because it's the narrowest of the stock Q7 tire options (1" narrower than 255/55/18), and narrower tires are thought to perform better on snow. I chose the Hakka SUV over the newer Hakka 5 because the Tire Factory sales rep said it would probably last longer and I already have experience with the Hakka SUVs on my Discovery. The Hakka 5 has a new stud technology which is probably better than the Hakka SUV studs, but I wasn't interested in studs this time. I prefer the single compound Hakka SUV to multi-compound tires like Blizzaks because they wear evenly and are more likely to have good grip throughout their life.

On dry pavement, the new tires on the Q7 hum at low speeds and whine at highway speeds (approximately as loud as the ambient wind noise). The noise at any speed is quieter than the 4.2L exhaust under hard acceleration. I think the noise isn't bad at all, but then I've been driving on studded tires for eight years. The tires don't feel squirmy like the Hakkas on my A4 did - probably because the Q7 is so heavy. Of course, the tires work great in the snow. I can't tell if installing studs would have significantly improved their performance on snow because the Q7 handles differently than my other cars with studded tires. Acceleration on the snow is excellent. Stopping and turning grip is also good. Of course you can break it loose by turning too sharply, but the tires recover quickly if you straighten a little or take your foot off the gas, unlike summer tires which often require you to straighten the wheel completely before they'll reestablish grip.

Although dedicated snow tires and wheels with TPMS aren't cheap, they are worth considering. It makes sense for me because I live in a snowy area and usually keep my vehicles for about eight low-mileage years (about 75,000 miles total) before trading them in. One set of snow tires easily lasts me for eight years. That amounts to just over $300 per year, which I consider to be relatively cheap insurance considering the potential consequences of a wreck. It also makes driving in the snow a lot more enjoyable. If you're considering dedicated snow tires, make sure you have enough room to store a set of off-season tires.

By the way, the stock wheel changing tools work fine with one exception - the hub cap removal tool for the 19" stock wheels doesn't fit through the fake Allen bolts on the hubcaps. To get it to fit, you'll have to either straighten the hook out slightly or trim the end of the hook. Alternatively, you can carry a small screwdriver to pry the hubcaps off. The hardest part of swapping the wheels was getting the jack to fit back in its foam cradle and reassembling the foam. I plan to buy a floor jack before the next wheel swap.

I haven't seen any photos of a Q7 with factory 18" winter wheels, so here's a photo of mine:


This is a photo of the tire track after two tires have passed through 4" of fresh snow:


This is a photo of a valve stem kit and tire pressure monitoring sensor:


-Burke
2007 Q7 4.2L Premium
265/50/19 summer
235/60/18 winter

pagpc

did the same thing, but with studs. work great.

DasTT

Those winter wheels (at 18 x 7.5) and the 235/60 tire size go together well and look good. I never wanted to have to mount and dismount tires each season so have always gone with a winter setup. A good source is eBay of course to get new take-offs. This was my approach for the Q7. The only bad thing is that I have Conti 4x4 tires to wear out first, but I only spent $1K for the whole thing, wheels (the 4.2 non-premium 18 x 8.5 wheels), pressure monitors, stems, and tires. The winter here is fine for an all season tire in town so wearing these out for a year or so won't be a problem. I usually take the '86 5K skiing anyway.

The Blizzak LM-25 compound is uniform through the tread depth and so can be another choice for the Q7. I tend towards a winter tire that will spend most of its time on dry roads, because deep snow performance is not needed here. Studs are useless and a net negative on dry roads IMHO. I think I'll go with the 255/55 size since the wheel diameter at 8.5 is at the end of recommended for a 235/60 tire. But we'll see when the time comes.

On TPMS, there has been a lot of discussion about turning it off, but no one has been successful yet. Even though the Q7 TPMS system is lame (can't tell you anything about temp or pressure from the MMI) it's still a good safety feature to have.

I'd be interested to know what your speedo error is. Mine is about 2% as measured by GPS. Original wheels are 20 x 9 with 275/45 tires. I searched for a way to calibrate the speedo (possible on the GTI) but cannot find anything for the Q7. I wonder if the car adapts from info that the navigation has on speed. There is a register in teh instrument cluster that shows tire size but it is read only. I'll have to see if that changes over time and if the speedo error is reduced. It was exactly on (within 0.1 MPH) with the original tire/wheel setup.

maxlxi

Thanks for the nice write-up. This is the first winter in quite a few that I am not running Nokian tires. I got my Q7 in October and I wanted to get a feel for what it is like in snow with the stock Continental tires. So far this winter I've only had one circumstance where I drifted in a curve, but no one was coming and nothing happened.

My last set of Nokians were NRWs that I used on my 02 A6. They were great. I tried a set of Hakkapeliitta Qs, but they were too squirmy on curves, and my tire dealer offered to swap them out for the NRWs. What was nice about the NRWs was you could run them year-round if you wanted. After my stock tires wore out I replaced them with Pirelli P Zero Nero on new (17") wheels and left the NRWs on the stock (16") wheels. When it was time to turn in my A6 in October, I put the stock wheels back on, which had the NRWs on them. I don't think it cost me any extra in tire expense to run winter tires. I did buy the second set of wheels, but I would have gone through three sets of tires regardless (maybe four).

If you are going to buy multiple sets of tires over the life of the car anyway, and you live in cold/snow country, you might as well have a set of snow tires. As you say, they usually last the life of the car anyway.

I'm hemming and hawing whether I should buy a set of winter tires for the Q7. I don't plan on keeping it as long as I did the A6. I don't think I want to run 20" winter tires, which means a second set of wheels. I appreciate you itemizing the cost of the second set of wheels/sensors/etc. While I don't mind the cost of the tires, I'm not sure I want to make the investment in wheels for just 2 or 3 winters.

Thanks again for the Hakkapeliitta SUV review. Papaya says he likes the Pirelli Scorpion Ice and Snow. what to do...what to do

Burke

I've used this set of winter tires for seven years now, and they are still working great. They have 16,800 miles on them and plenty of tread left. All of the TPMS batteries are still working fine. If I hadn't purchased the Q7 in its first year, I would have searched Ebay for takeoff rims and tried to buy the OEM TPMS parts from a cheaper source. Outfitting a Q7 with winter wheels and tires would be much easier today.