Good advice. Your car is beautiful!

 

Thanks for the great advice everyone. I reconsidered my original ambition to keep the staggered 20" wheels. Tonight I took the plunge and bought a new set of 19" Volutions from the UK (eBay), all four being 8.5Jx19CH front wheels. So I now have half of the equation solved, with the tires being the other half to figure out.

My current front tires are 255/35 ZR 20s, which by my calculations give me a 89mm sidewall. Now that I'm reducing the wheels to 19", I can do either a 255/40 R 19 or a 245/40 R 19 (or maybe even a 245/45 R 19), is that correct? If so, my hope of adding on Nokian Hakkapelitta R5 tires is still alive.

I'm also looking into the rear spacers suggested by Ray Ray and have come up with the 50mm BONOSS AL6061-T6. Is that the right one?

 

Jay -

While I realize that you are a brave soul, do you really drive your F-Type in the snow and salt? The one time I accidentally got caught in snow my Conti DWS tires worked great with RWD. But, with that one exception, I bed down the F-Type for the winter once salt is on the roads and don't break it out until the spring rain washes the salt away.

 

Go with Continental WinterContact TS 860 S. This tire is incredible and you can have 295/30 R20. Proper setup for a proper car!
Another alternative would be Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4.

 

Short answer is yes, it’s a daily and it does daily things. Salt and snow may accelerate some wear and tear but things break, things get fixed.

 

Well, I thought I posted my latest update a couple days ago but it looks like it didn't take. Perhaps because it was late and I was tired/sleepy, but I made a decision and bought a set of four 19" OEM Volution style wheels, all fronts. Found them on eBay from a shop in the UK and they were reasonably priced ($400/EA, delivered). They messaged me right away to make sure I knew I was buying four fronts, and were concerned with my application (I'm glad they checked). So there's one decision made, and one to go!

Now my hope of getting the Nokian Hakkapeliitta R5 tires is still in play, but I could use some tire sizing / math help to bring this home:

My current summer tires are 255/35 ZR 20 for the fronts and 295/30 ZR 20 for the rears.

When I go from 20" wheels to 19" wheels, two things happen. First, the wheel height obviously decreases from 20" to 19", so I can theoretically make that up in sidewall height. And second, the wheel width decreases from 9" to 8.5".

So according to my math, and since I'm running all four tires with front-sized wheels, my tire size should be either 255/40 R 19 or 245/45 R19. My preference would be 255/40 R 19, but I want to be sure that 255 is good with the 8.5" wheel. Am I on the right track?

Finally, I'm looking into the 50mm rear wheel spacers suggested by Ray Ray. I found what looks like the perfect match, BONOSS Forged Active Cooling Hubcentric 5×4.25″ Wheel Spacers Aluminum 7075-T6 CB63.3 for Jaguar F-Type X152 2012+.

Thanks all!

 

245/40-19 is the standard OEM size for the fronts.

 

Good morning gents.

Unless I am mistaken—which is quite possible—I believe Ichiban was asking me? So, like RayRay, my short answer has always been yes. I’ve enjoyed year-round driving—yes, in Maine—for the 9 years I’ve owned the car. My how time flies; especially when you are having fun. So I have driven in ALL sorts of weather and between the car, the tires, and whatever driving skills I have—and, of course, road conditions are paramount—I’ve done quite well. That is until…

it’s a longer story, but essentially I was planning on taking two cases of Prosecco to my dealer as a holiday season gift last year. The weather was pretty horrible and i had all intentions of driving my wife’s amazing 2006 BMW 325XI manual wagon—which has, by the way, 249,000 original miles….and we’ve never changed the clutch! I received a call late one Friday night that if I can bring the Jag in, they would be able to “squeeze” my car in for its annual service. Great, I thought. Turns out the weather that Saturday morning was horrendous! Snow and ice everywhere. Cars were slipping and sliding like there was no tomorrow. Still, and like an idiot, I took my 2015 V6 RWD Jag out. Thankfully no one else was involved or even near me but just before I got onto the highway—driving quite appropriately given the weather—the car hit a patch of ice and…bam!..into a side rail. Thus damaging the front of my car and my ego (that latter is a joke). Car got repaired beautifully and I “learned” my lesson.

The moral of the story: no matter who you are, in any conditions, s^%$ happens. That and I am an idiot.

 

245/40/19, no spacer front, ~35mm spacer rear gets you oem look.

245/40/19, ~17mm front spacer, 50mm rear spacer gets the rims flush to the fender(reason for 17mm is 15mm might require some trimming of the original stud to fit and 20mm might rub)

245/45/19 will work with both of the above but a fuller looking wheel well (pictured), it’s a small 10mm difference on paper but makes a great visual impact.


my apologize, i was probably mistaken! But the answer is a yes nonetheless!

 

Sorry to hear about your accident, Jay. Yes, I was asking THE ONE AND ONLY RickyJay. :-) However, I'm quite pleased to learn that you suffered no harm as a result of the accident. A very beautiful example of the F-Type and, I might add, a great guy.

 

Pleas Ray Ray, no apologies needed! And happy to see someone else enjoying year-round driving. I’ll stop driving when I’m dead.

Thank goodness there is only one of me. Not sure the world could stand another. But, thank you Frank. I think you’re a great guy too. We’ve been very lucky and fortunate to have such a close group of people who have met over the years. One more reason this Forum is such a great place.

🙏
NamaJay

 

You can call him Jay, or you can call him Ray…

 

Here is a handy site I use for comparing tire circumferences and whatnot:

https://tiresize.com/calculator/

use the comparison tab and it will tell you how things look and calculate the speedo offset.

i found a set of maelstroms off another svr with CCB that have winter tires on them so I’ll probably go that route. I can’t size down to 19 because there’s less than an inch of clearance between the front wheel barrel and the caliper on my car.

 

Thanks for the link to the calculator. You'd have a good laugh if you saw my hand scribbled calculations and then crude spreadsheet trying to figure all that out. The calculator makes it all seem like a cinch!

 

Hmmm, I didn't even think about spacers for the front, but I guess that makes sense if the wheel is 1/2" narrower and the tires are also a little narrower.

So, if I get the 245 tires then I'll need 17mm and 50mm spacers. I'm leaning this way.

But what if I stick with 255 tires? Most sites I've found say that 8.5" wheels can handle 255 tires, so is there a fit or safety reason that I wouldn't?

 

Go on TireRack.com. Plug in the size tires you want and Tire Rack will tell you the wheel width range onto which a tire will safely mount.

 

ha, I’ve got pages of that in my past. I’m really into wheel fitment without using spacers so I’ve always calculated out widths and offsets and suspension clearances to get just the right fit. I wish that calculated had existed like 20 years ago.

 

The wheels you choose already have lower offset to accommodate the smaller width, they will sit the same as an oem 20” without spacer.

The spacer is recommended to bring your wheels flush to the fender to match the rear ( with 50mm spacer).

The spacer needed for rear oem look is about 35mm(with oem front wheels, bith 19 and 20”)

245 vs 255 is a very tiny difference once mounted, I’d base the choice on tire availability and price.

Do keep in mind my 245 rear with 50mm spacer has less than 5mm of clearance to the lip, i might be rubbing a bit with a 255.

tldr: get the 245



I still do it by hand and sometimes off the head!

 

Well, it's been a month and I have an update on my winter wheels & tires journey.

- My four wheels arrived from the UK, each in a separate box and mostly on different days. Besides the 2-3 week delay and a couple more scratches than I expected, I'd say that the process and the cost were reasonable.
- I then bought the tires, the Nokian Hakkapeliitta R5 245/45 R19, and had them mounted to the new/gently-used wheels.
- And lastly, my Bonoss spacers 50mm (rear) and 20mm (front) arrived, and I was finally ready to put them all together and switch out the summer tires. The spacers came directly from China (which I did not know beforehand) and were made and shipped after I placed my order. I thought they were in stock, but instead the whole process took about 20 days for order to arrival.

Here's what I learned after going through the installation:

First, I learned that the front/rear support locations to jack up the car are not easy to find or intuitive. After some quick searches on my phone I felt confident enough about the general locations, but still really don't know exactly where the support points are. I jacked it up nonetheless and it seems to have turned out okay.

Second, I learned that the 20mm spacer for the front wheel isn't thick enough to cover up the original stud bolts. Even though the OEM wheels have a small cavity to allow for some stud protrusion, I would have had to grind off somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2" of the stud, removing almost all of the non-threaded lead-in to the bolt. Though I had the tools I just wasn't willing to do that and risk some irreversible damage to the car. So I left the 20mm spacers off and just installed the new wheels/tires normally, and they looked very similar to the summer tire setup.

Third, I learned that the 50mm spacer for the rear wheel is much thicker/beefier than I imagined, and after installing it, the rear wheels/tires stuck out noticeably further than the front wheels/tires without the spacers. Noticeable to me, anyway. I guess that was to be expected, but my brain just didn't put it all together until I was standing there looking at it. After some thought and walking around the car a bunch of times I decided that I didn't care and would live with it. Maybe there is some solution to the front stud grinding issue that I don't know about, but I'm not going to buy another set of 35mm spacers to replace the 50mm spacers to make it perfect. In hindsight I should have just bought 35mm spacers to begin with.

Fourth, I learned that the tire sensor light is going to come on every time I drive the car until I either buy additional sensors for each tire, or switch back to the summer set. Too bad there's not a plug or fuse I can pull like there is for the Auto start/stop engine feature.

Fifth, I learned that door window is poorly designed to handle ice and snow. I know that has nothing to do with wheels/tires, but I thought I'd comment on it anyway. After sitting outside at work in a very modest snow, somehow the window froze and wouldn't roll down until it dethawed. I saw this issue online before but didn't think I would experience it so quickly.


In the meantime, I've had the car on the snowy roads for a week now and it has performed admirably. Michigan, like much of the country over the past few weeks, has had lots of snow and cold weather to put my new setup through its paces. The OEM Volution wheels aren't my favorite aesthetically, but they're growing on me a little. I got used to my all black summer wheels and it's hard to adjust. The Nokian tires are soft and grippy and I've breezed through the various snowy and icy conditions. I sometimes use the winter/snow mode and feel like it's a good governor on the RPMs to prevent me from overdoing it on the throttle. The ground clearance has been fine except for one cringeworthy episode today on my way to the store. I was turning into Lowe's off the main road and the curved entry road into the parking lot apparently wasn't wide enough for a plow to get to and so it was like a one way snow/ice two-track road with a high buildup of snow in between the tire tracks. I was grinding and scooping up snow for 100 feet as a tear slowly rolled down my cheek. I may not have the courage to look at the front lip until Spring comes.

I've found that driving the car in wintry weather can elicit strong emotions and feedback from others. A colleague at work asked me why in the world would I be driving such a beautiful car in such bad weather. As I was walking out of the store today a couple was walking in and I overheard their conversation, with the guy telling the girl that he wouldn't even drive his nice Subaru in that weather, let alone a nice car like that (the Jaguar).

I'm kind of glad that it's a little dirty and uneven and imperfect at the moment. It's come down from a pedestal where it doesn't need to live... it is just a car after all, and I'm enjoying it no matter the conditions!

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think the Volution wheels look great mounted. There is a way to force the tire sensors to work (assuming you installed the correct frequency sensors). I tried all of the tricks listed on the forum and none of them got the controller to recognize them. I spoke to a tire installer and they said that they could do it but also pointed me to this device which allows you to teach your car what sensors are being used. Autel MaxiTPMS In truth, I have been weary that I would mess things up and lose my summer tire monitoring, so have not messed with reprogramming the module. I had completely forgotten about the jack positioning and the low ride height that limits access ( I have to bump the front into a brick for my rolling jack to slide under the car )

This winter has been particularly brutal ( more snow and sustained low temps = thick ice on the roads - at least in Wisconsin) . This is only my second winter with the car and the ice patches this year sent the car into a slide on more than one occasion = always when the road is partial ice , it handles the snow slush easily. Luckily there is enough magic in the electronics to make it easy to bring back under control but it was enough to give me pause. That said, most other cars were doing the same and it was only the SUVs built for off-road that didn't seem to care.

I am completely with you on this

..dB