Welcome to the Winter Tyre Reviews blog for the Audi Q7 winter wheels and tyres.

As the winter season approaches, now is the right time to discuss your Q7 for safe winter driving.

You may well be asking why would you need winter equipment on a 4 wheel drive vehicle, surely it’s designed for this type of weather?

Even though the Q7 is a 4 wheel drive vehicle, it comes with summer tyres as standard. Whilst these are great during the warmer weather, they aren’t designed to perform to the best of their ability at temperatures below 7 degrees. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. The Q7 is a popular vehicle for the winter sports run to the ski resorts, and in most of these countries, the use of winter tyres is essential requirement for the vehicle’s safety or required by law in certain regions in Europe.
2. Audi often fit wide wheels and tyres to their vehicles. These look great and give the Q7 fantastic handling and stability with good road coverage in the summer months, but aren’t suited to snow, slush and ice, this is when a narrower tyre placement gives better grip and handling.
3. And of course, Q7 owners use their vehicles to transport the most valuable cargo anyone has, your family. You know that you want the school run to be as safe as possible in the winter conditions.

So, with the help of our Winter Tyre Experts, Tyremen, we are going to discuss the best wheel and tyre options available on the market to enable your Q7 to perform to the standard and safety you expect from Audi.

Putting winter tyres on the Q7 gives improved handling and grip in some of the most challenging winter conditions. This advice can be generally used for other 4 wheel drive vehicles but is geared for the Audi Q7 and there are some subtle differences dependant on the model.

According to our customers, although the 4WD gets the Q7 moving, and moving well, when it comes to braking and turning in the snow, both of which are pretty important, the Q7 struggles. We believe that there is probably two reasons for this;

1. The Q7 is a heavy vehicle and the momentum forces the vehicle in the direction it is pointing
2. The Q7 has wide tyres, these are great for summer, but in the winter a smaller tyre coverage on the road surface provides better performance in snow, slush and ice.

So what exactly do we advise? Well, the Q7 comes in four wheel sizes from 18″ to 21″ and that is a huge variation, however, so we will start with the 18″.

The 18″ wheels usually come with either 255/55R18 or 235/60R18 tyre fitted. In this case, these are the narrowest and smallest tyres used on the Q7 so you can simply opt to change tyres for a winter set. These make a huge difference to the Q7’s performance when temperatures drop below 7 degrees. The current best seller is the Vredestein Wintrac 4 Xtreme, a great priced tyre that offers exceptional mileage, superb winter performance and this tyre can be left on the Q7 all year round without any significant drawbacks.

Because of the really positive feedback we have had from Q7 owners on the 18″ winter option, and as many of the Q7’s fitted with the larger wheels will comfortably take the 18″, they have opted to come down in size for the benefits of winter driving. Remember, the reason for this is the smaller the tyre print on the ground, the better the performance.

If your Q7 is fitted with 19″ or above, then we recommend that you invest in a winter wheel and tyre package. Our partner Tyremen imports a wheel called the Grip made by the German company Alutec. As you would expect from a German company, the quality of the wheel is exceptional and engineered to fit the Q7 so well, that the original bolts fit and they come with a five year guarantee with TUV approval. The wheel is designed to compliment the original wheel and maintain the stylish look of the Q7 and is probably the best aftermarket version available.

When fitted with the Vredestein Wintrac 4 Xtreme as we discussed earlier, the package comes to under £1200. This is by far the best option if you are thinking of keeping the Q7 for a few years and depending on how many miles you drive, both sets from new should be good for at least two seasons.

With the 19″ wheel, for some reason this seems to be an odd size and there is a lack of winter tyres. When available, the cost of the 265/50R19 starts at £250 each plus fitting. With the cost of having them fitted on and off your current wheels at around £120 per year, we feel it would be better to invest in the 18″ winter wheel and tyre package.

Now comes the downside to owning a Q7, but only if you opted for the exceptional looking 21″ wheels. They look amazing on the vehicle and really stand out from the crowd. But! The standard 295/35R21 tyre price starts at just over £230 without fitting and the winter version in this size, made by Yokohama, at a cost of £300 delivered and limited supply, that’s £1200 plus fitting for the vehicle, makes that 18″ winter package more attractive. Due to this cost and the improved safety features for the 18″ package, then this it what we recommend.

We hope that you find this blog useful and will enable you to make an informed choice for your winter wheels and tyres options. If you require any more information, why not contact the friendly team at Tyremen.

Call 08456 807808

Thanks for reading, the Winter Tyre Reviews Team