staggered rims on quattro

[A6kidd]

I am looking to buy some rims for my 2002 Audi A6... and what i found is a set of raderwerk rims with tires..... the only issue i am having with them is that they are staggered.... with an 18X8 rim in the front with 215/40/18 tires....and the rear tires are 18X9 with 225/40/18 tires on the rear... the tires are brand new and were purchased at the same time and only have 3k on them so wear is not an issue.... so the question i am needing answered is can i run these rims and tires with out damaging the awd system?

Please help me out!!

[NdubN]

stay away from staggered wheels with quattro. Ive heard horror stories of axels flying off. The only way it will work is if you keep the rolling diameters of the tires the same. So essentially you would either have really beefy tires in the front or mad stretch in the rear.

[MikkiJayne]

Axles flying off

Rule of thumb is 3% difference is safe for Quattro. 215 40 18 is 629mm, 225 40 18 is 645mm so thats 2.5% difference. Technically thats probably ok, but personally I wouldn't do it, as its going to be working the torsen centre diff pretty hard and IMO its quite a risk.

It might be worth asking in the B5 forum as this is discussed a lot more in there and some of them may have personal experience of whether this works or not.

Edit - example here: http://forums.fourtitude.com/showthr...1#post76971404