Ach1976

Hello all. This is my first Lexus, so please be patient and bear with me! I'm likely going to pick up an '08 IS 350 early next week. The car currently has the staggered 18's with summer shoes, which I'm going to look to replace to make the car serviceable for my 70 mile round trip commute in the Connecticut winter.

I plan on moving down to 17's and would like to go non-staggered with 225/45's all around to take advantage of the much wider selection of winter tires. I know that there are other posts on this, but my searches have yielded no definitive answers. Some folks claim it is fine, others warn that it will cause the vehicle's electronic nannies to misbehave. I would appreciate input from anyone who has gone the non-staggered route, especially with winter/snow tires. Thanks.

busdepot

iTrader: (1)

17's are fine. just make sure your tpms sensors are setup right.

g5spark

I got 17 for winters but the biggest issue you'll have is finding rims that fit. I got a 06 IS350 and steelies wont fit over the front calipers. I'm on my 2nd set of winter alloys and both times i really had limited choices on rims due to offset and fitting over the brakes. I also got some cheap alloys since the pot holes in the spring here are brutal. I've already bent 2 rims from hitting them.

Sango

iTrader: (10)

If you get OEM 17", they will definitely fit the IS350. You can go non-staggered but it will would look a bit funny since it will look liked a AWD instead of a RWD.

Having the all same tires all around on average will handle better than the staggered setup for winter.

There is a bit of implications changing from stagger to non-stagger because it would change the handling balance, assuming one is aware of the current balance. It would affect all of the balance, acceleration, decelerating and cornering.

Doing so may upset the vehicle but it depends as long as one is aware of what tires is on and why, it should be fine.
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For me with my 11 IS, I was originally going to go 17" but after consulting with friends, I decided not to because it did not quite really make sense because you would not save that much more down sizing and would make sense to get better wheels for summers.

Since my car already came with stock 18" (which came with summers), use the stock wheels as winters and get aftermarket wheels for the summer. Currently I am on stock wheels with the stock stagger sizes on 18" Blizzaks and plan to get Work Wheels in 18" to put my summers on.