does anyone know a good source for a compatible alloy (or steel) wheel-set for my '55 Panda 4x4 with winter tyres. OEM new/used or after-market. I notice the orginal '03 Panda 4x4 wheels are different style to my later 'climbing' model but both are 5.5j. I like the idea of finding a set of punto 14" alloys with the same offset and using those as that should be a cheaper exercise.

My other question is: with the 165/70r14 tyres (as used on the 4x4 on the continent) - would these fit the standard Panda 5J alloys? as these will be easier to find a used set too.

Also what are the implications of running 165/70 over 65 profile tyres on the UK MPH speedo calibration? (ie will it make the car faster or slower on the speedo and will it actually record more or fewer miles on the clock in use with '70s (or hardly make any difference?)

thanks
Matt and the PandRover

Tbh that size difference won't really affect the speedo readout.

masha said:

does anyone know a good source for a compatible alloy (or steel) wheel-set for my '55 Panda 4x4 with winter tyres.

Click to expand...

ebay / local newspaper ads

I picked up 4 brand new steel wheels and tyres off a 500 for forty quid

My tyres is the place. A complete steel wheel fitted with a winter tyre
starts at £68 up to about £100 fitted with a michelin alpin winter tyre.
The wheels are 5 1/2 x 14 and there are tyre size choices.
The offset is et35

Follow this link and put you car details in
http://www.mytyres.co.uk/Complete_wheels.html

If anyone's thinking about winter tyres, get them now!

I bought a set of Sava Eskimos 2's (cheap tyre, but work very well in the snow, ice, rain and dry, though a little noisy in the dry) last year a week before the snow, £118 all four delivered from Mytyres.

As soon as the ground turned white they were listed at £300!

Goudrons said:

If anyone's thinking about winter tyres, get them now!

I bought a set of Sava Eskimos 2's (cheap tyre, but work very well in the snow, ice, rain and dry, though a little noisy in the dry) last year a week before the snow, £118 all four delivered from Mytyres.

As soon as the ground turned white they were listed at £300!

Click to expand...

Hell, here you couldn't even get any winter tyres unless you were really lucky.

I got a set of Michelin Alpin A4s on my steel wheels only through sheer luck because some other customer canceled his reservation.

just got a set of Nokians for my Caravelle, got them from oponeo in Poland. http://www.oponeo.co.uk/
Free delivery to Europe. Great prices, but I see i paid £104 each, today they are £144.
A friend paid £94 each for his (different size), today they are £196.

here's the panda size links 165/70/14 http://www.oponeo.co.uk/tyres/winter-tyres-165-70-r14/
the sava's are £37 each, or the Fulda kristal gets a good rating at £39
165/65/14 http://www.oponeo.co.uk/tyres/winter-tyres-165-65-r14/

Over on Mytyres web site,
the tyre i was looking at for my VW was £130 last week, over £300 yesterday, but is £229 today.

The panda sizes still look cheap thouh, Especially if you want new steel wheels too.
£70 a corner looks mighty cheap including the steelies!

Really you should buy them NOW if you want them at a good price!!

That's wheels only on the eBay listing. You may as well pay another £100 and have them with tyres fitted??

I have checked the OEM and replica alloy wheels for Panda 4x4 (5.5J x 14). The OEM alloys are unbelievably expensive, costing around 1000 euros for 4 wheels.

WSP Italy manufactures the replica alloys for Panda 4x4, with wheel design name as Fiuggi (you can search it in google). From their website, it seems that they have strict production and testing standards to ensure exact specs and quality. The replica is about 80 euros per wheel. Huge difference! I emailed a vendor in France to ask about the quality of the WSP Italy replicas and the reason for the big difference in prices than the OEM. The manager of the online vendor replied that car manufactures do not earn enough profit nowadays due to competition, and thus try to recoup some loss from accessory sales, hence the astronomical prices. He claimed that WSP Italy wheels are certified producer of quality alloy wheels and approved by traffic authorities in Germany and Italy.

I have no idea about the quality of replica wheels. Neither have tried it on my Panda 4x4. I decided to stick to steel wheels after I checked the weights of the OEM alloys and OEM Steel. From eper.fiatforum.com, I found out that the OEM alloys weigh 8 kilos per wheel, while the steel ones weigh 5.5 kilo each. The alloys are actually much heavier! I double checked the weight with a fiat dealer in the Netherlands, and it is true.

I guess there is no point of fitting those heavy alloys on Panda 4x4? Or I may miss something here?

stick with steel ones, you can always sell them on later and you won't lose a lot of money either

Try www.alloy-wheels-store.com

They have some reasonably-priced alloy wheels.

Bit of a delayed response here: You ask if running 165/70s will give different speedo readings to the standard 185/65s... Bear in mind the way those numbers work: 165/70 means the tyre is nominally 165 mm wide and the sidewall height is 70% of the tyre's width. 185/65 means 185mm wide and 65% of that. The net result is less than 2% error on the speedo.

(see here: http://www.etyres.co.uk/tyre-size-calculator.htm)

I managed to get a set of four steel Punto 5.5J 14" wheels (with tyres on them!) for just 99p from eBay a couple of years back! (Was a buyer collect item which I suspect put some folks off?) Never yet got round to using them but intend to buy some more 'serious' off road tyres for the steelies at some point

why do you want new wheels for your winter tyres? my local independent garage sold me some winter tyres in August and said bring them in when i want them fitted £5 per wheel. they said the wheels would be very expensive and queried why I wanted them. I thought to keep changing the tyres would be damaging to the tyres but they said no it would be ok so I went with their advice. I will get the tyres fitted in two weeks time.
my winter tyres are Pirelli 175/65R15 84T W190SC (*)

£10 per tyre per year gets rather expensive after a few years......

ophelia said:

...
my winter tyres are Pirelli 175/65R15 84T W190SC (*)

Click to expand...

I presume your car is a Cross then (15 inch wheels) The original tyres that Fiat seemed to fit to the Cross were winter tyres anyway I believe, so I presume you've replaced those original tyres with some summer ones at some point? Swapping tyres should be fine, but I've always thought the advice was that is is better to keep tyres inflated and fitted to wheels, rather than sitting around 'loose'.

Tyres can be left stored loose, just need to be stored differently.

I know - my local Watling tyres started at £7/wheel 5 years ago, and has climbed to £10, £12, and now £15 per wheel to fit winter tyres, so its not really viable to keep changing them from summer to winter anymore at £60/time (I could live with £28 years ago, but this has nearly doubled). You are lucky if you have somewhere local that will fit for £5/corner, I've found somewhere else here rumoured to do them for £10.

Therefore so I will look for a spare set of wheels at some point. It seems the 14" 5.5J 4x4 specific wheels are rare as hens teeth 2nd hand, and standard Panda 14" wheels are 5J (plenty of those about used). Does anyone know if the 185/65/R14 tyres will sit on standard Panda wheels - although there must be a good reason why 4x4 has 5.5J variant - possibly different offset? spacing to accommodate rear discs or to fill out the plastic wheel arches?