Replica winter wheels plus hakkapeliita 8 studless review

[2015F80]

So after months of thinking and shoping, this is what i decided on.

I actually had ordered a 19 inch whels and tire ( michelin pa3 255 35 19) kit from an online store in canada. I got an email the day after i ordered saying that the wheels would not fit my m3. I found that weird since i had entered the details of my car and brake (steel) on their online wheel selector. As it turns out their wheel selector only look at wheel size. Hub bore, bolt patern, and offset to détermine if a wheel would fit your car.

This is not tirerack btw.
Tirerack list wheels that truly fit the car and the calipers.

So i took this as a sign and decided to go for a more conservative but more winter friendly 18 inch set up.

I found a garage in my hometown, montreal.

This is what i got.

RWC style BM933 in 18 inch x 8 inch 30 offset

Bmw hubcentric bore i think 72.6 mm

4 wheels and 4 hakkapelitta 8 studless for 2000 plus tax

Installed and balanced with black wheel weights unlike my summer bmw 19 inch wheels wich have silver wheel weights.

As you can see in the pictures i think the wheels look great.

the machined portion of the wheel is silver instead of being smoked on the oem wheel.

The wheels came the the bmw center caps.

i chose 245-40 18 all around because i wanted a little more direct feel than a 245 - 45 18 tire.

I would say that the tires are about 20 to 25 % softer than the 19 inch PSS.

Turn in feel is diminished but pretty good for a snow tire.

I would say tires noise is comparable to the pss maybe a little quieter.

Fuel economy. Seems to be about 10% better. Probably because i drive slower?

As far as snow driving , i havent driven i the snow so far so we will see. But with the hakkapeliita 8 i dont think i could have chosen a better snow and ice tire.

[2015F80]

More pic

[2015F80]

Another pic

[MCanadaE46]

wow that's a great setup. Good pricing too!

[2015F80]

Yeah it really looks clean.

Quite happy with it.

Just came to realise that i wasn't going to drive too hard when it's freezing outside.

[catch]

nice setup. These dont look as bad in 18s as I thought they would.

[aboulfad]

Cool setup. Why did you go with the 8 studdless instead of R2? My shop Vag Motorsport also was pushing the 8 but I decided to go with the recommendations from some members here. I just hope the replicas will tough out our shitty potholes... I wanted to get them but in the end I said I wanted "real" mags and paid maybe double the price of yours my full set with R2/BBS SR019 came to $3k CDN tax in. ($275 for R2, $395 for BBS)

We should compare notes as the winter and snow/ice/slush comes on, btw 245/40 was deemed to be a bigger difference compared with the OEM diameter, let us know if DSC is intervening unnecessarily... Or maybe in the end it doesn't really matter! We have some good different installations that by next winter, we should have some good data!

[2015F80]

great to hear from you aboulfad.

went with the hakka 8 because it seemed to be more performance oriented.

[u2b]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFXhs4iU70g[/u2b]

I have to say that the thread depth seems to be less than a blizzak lm-32. I guess i will see how the tire wears over the next few months.

as far as the diameter,
245-40 18 = 784.6 rev / mile
245-45 18 = 756.3 rev / mile
255-35 19 = 775.3 rev / mile
275-35 19 = 759.2 rev / mile

So a 245-40 18 is closer to to the 255-35 19 diameter than a 245-45 18.

but a 245-45 18 is closer to the rear 275-35 19.

a 245-40 a more direct feel also.

as far as DSC, no problem noticed yet.

But when you reset tour tire pressure monitor after putting your new tires, would it not take into account the new diameter of the tires to calibrate the dsc system as far as slippage?

If there is a holiday meet in montreal, i'm in. We will compare notes then.

[aboulfad]

getting more technical eh I was told the 8 were optimized for winter performance but with the studs. Without the studs they perform slightly different, but it's hard to really tell as I have no experience in snow/ice yet and there was virtually no reviews whatsoever on the 8 studless. Only few forum discussions...

As far as resetting the FTM system, it is speculated that the DSC doesn't relearn anything. See here http://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho...&postcount=180

Yeah, a winter meet is cool, maybe during the holidays?

[2015F80]

Is the sensor for speed of the m3 located at the front or real wheel or a combination of both?

For the speedometer and not the dsc system

[aboulfad]

I'll check in Rheingold for you, any reason you want to know?

[2015F80]

just trying to see what speed difference would be on the speedo with my curent set up.

since the diameter of my front winter tires is close to the diameter of the front oe 19 inch tires then i'm good.

if the speedo sensor is in the rear then my speed would appear faster on the speedo than i'm really travelling.

[aboulfad]

Speed sensors are in all four wheels see attached docs. not sure what to make of it for speed impact, but if you are worried you are driving faster than you are, dont push it and stay close to speed limit! the difference in any case will be very small. and i think there is one wheel speed sensor that feeds the DSC ECU and maybe other ECUs.

[2015F80]

Originally Posted by aboulfad

Speed sensors are in all four wheels see attached docs. not sure what to make of it for speed impact, but if you are worried you are driving faster than you are, dont push it and stay close to speed limit! the difference in any case will be very small. and i think there is one wheel speed sensor that feeds the DSC ECU and maybe other ECUs.

Wow thanks for the great work Sherlock Holmes

Always nice to see someone who is into the details.

[aboulfad]

It's just a search in Rheingold, I don't think that qualifies as great detective work, but thanks for the compliment

[Rotherd31]

On my third winter now with my Nokian Haps on my X1. Couldn't be happier with them. Snow/ice traction/steering bite is gangbusters! But this is no recent revelation for me. Been running them for over ten years now on various DD's. Oh, and mileage on them is excellent. 15,000 on them now and a ton of tread depth remains.

[aboulfad]

@Rotherd31 if I may ask, which ones have you been running: 8 studless or the R2?