yon

So ok, I got by last winter with the OEM all-seasons on my AWD GS300. Figured it wasn't worth the hassle of chasing down whether the 16x7 Sport Edition wheels with 215-60/16 REVO1 tires will fit the new car, since it was late February already. The all-seasons did pretty well for the snow events winter had left.

But now it's that time again.

I had a local place dry-fit one of the wheels this morning. It cleared the front calipers and didn't appear to have any issues clearing any other part of the suspension. So in theory I could just put these on and I'm good to go. The Revo's on these wheels are basically new (bought them from Tire Rack---were on my 02 ES300), I had only put around 2000 miles on them when I bought the GS. But, of course, it's not that easy:

• Tire Pressure Monitors I need to buy a 2nd set and fit them into the wheels. lexus-parts.com has them on Ebay for around $100 each, and Tire Rack thinks they'll fit into the Sport Edition rims.
• Offsets When talking to Tire Rack, they pointed out that the offsets are different on the recommended GS wheel (+45) vs my old wheel (+50)
• Load Rating The guy at Tire Rack also noted that the GS300 AWD is 300 pounds heavier than the ES, so the load rating of the wheel/tire might be an issue as well.

So unless I want to have the car constantly yelling at me that the TPMS system has failed, I need to deal with the Tire Pressure Monitors. Ok, fine. In theory I can put them into these wheels, but now Tire Rack has raised some doubts on whether these old wheels are the right thing. Seems to me like if the wheel clears the suspension and brakes, a 5mm offset difference should be no big deal, right?

Ditto with the load rating. 300 pounds doesn't seem like that much, and it's not like I drive the car that hard in the winter. The difference in tire width also seems minimal---the recommendation from Tire Rack is 225 vs the old ones being 215.

My alternatives are:

• Just drive the all-seasons and hope they perform as well with 10K miles as they did new. Seems doubtful.
• Buy a new wheel/tire package and take a bath on the old set (probably 50%). Will definitely work, but is the most expensive option.

For the latter, I'd seriously consider just getting a second set of OEM 17" wheels (I've seen them for around $500 a set on ebay) and then buying 17" snow tires. I'm optimizing for safety and cost; looks are not really an issue. I.e., jazzing up the car with expensive tricked-out wheels is not even remotely my goal.

So... what do y'all think?

yon

Wow... nobody has any thoughts?

Funky

Given your signature you keep your cars about 5 years. I'd just get another set of OEMs or something as durable and go that route.

I plan on getting snow tires for my stock 17s as well and getting new wheels and tires for spring. Personally, I'd rather not deal with the muscial wheel/tire/TPM mess and just have the dealer put on the new wheels and reset what ever they need on the car for the other set twice a year.