I recently bought a set of 17" Alloy with Kumho K27 winter tyres from e-pnue for 1200 CHF. The wheels are complete and balanced.

If you want I can recommend you so you can get a 40 CHF discount.

If you are looking to save some costs it is quite common to go for steel rims in place of alloys. It is also fairly regular to see cars with 17" for summer and 16" for winter.

It should be possible to get 205/55/R16 with steel rims fitted and balanced for around 800CHF at a place like http://www.auto-technik-unger.ch/pag...z=CH&gebiet=CH

These costs include fit, balance and generally insurance on the tyres for 2 years

The price quoted for tires and rims is less excessive especially with the Pirelli tires.

You often go from 17" summer tires to 16" winter tires so you you have room (between the tire and the wheel well) to install your snow chains.

If you have 17" winter tires, it is often the case that there will not be enough room to pass the chains over the tire. And if the chains are a bit loose, they will do some damage to the wheel well and car trim around the wheel well.

So you suggest to go to a dealer for service, pester him with questions, and then buy online. Nice idea - Not.

Given the prices dealers charge here for "service" I don't think a 5 min phone call is going to send them to the poorhouse!! e.g. Chf35 for 2 liters of windowwasher fluid when I had filled it before taking my car in for a "Swiss all-inclusive" service -hello??

Very simple way to sort this, all cars have a type approval number that will look look something similar to e1*2001/116*0430*05*, you should find it on the vehicle registration papers or somewhere under the bonnet in a fairly obvious location, make sure any rims you get are suitable for your type approval number, all rims will list what type approval they are suitable for and quite often the appropriate tyre size as well, make sure you see this and you should be OK.

I've never heard of changing rim size but keeping same tyre size, it is quite possible that having the smaller rim but same size tyre will cause your speedo to over read. so it will say 50 but you are actually doing 40.

The bit I have enlarged in the text above, he wrote a number like that down from the registration document.

That is correct, you need 205/60/16 or something similar. Maybe you can ask the dealer about this. If he says you're fine, he's clearly incompetent.

Ok so at lunch I took the car to another garage and they said the exact same thing as my dealer, that I will need 205/55/R16 set also said i need premium tyres but quoted me over 1800 chuffs. They checked the same things as the dealer before hand and then checked the green form.

It was my mistake my tyres are 205/50/R17 at the moment, kept getting the 50 and the 55 mixed up sorry guys.

ahhhh.... that clears it up then.

so your dealer does know his business indeed

Again i am really sorry for the confusion, I did tell you i was rubbish at car things. Thank you all for all your help.

Go to ATU in Germany and get wheels and tyres for less than half the Swiss price. they can supply the Swiss certificate also. Take your car papers.

I help once in awhile at a friends garage in buchs and he puts for the winter 15" rims and tires on almost all the cars with 17" Summer tires and rims. First they have to make sure smaller rims clear the brake calipers, my car came also with smaller winter rims and tires than the summer wheels. Seems normal here for the winter. They are approved for here. Most Dealers just want to make money. One guy came in and the Dealer wanted 2000 for 17" rims and tires. He left with 800 for 15" rims and tires. Just check around but a Dealer will never let you off cheap.

We just had winter tires put on our imported car for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Also, had no clue as to what size we needed. We tried the dealership but the quote seemed rather high so my husband then found a garage near our home and we stopped by on a saturday morning. The owner/mechanic told us which size was correct for car and even directed us to buy (online) another tire. We ordered them and had them delivered directly to the garage. The dealership wanted CHF1800 and we ended up paying, when all was said and done, CHF900.

For those in the Zürich area, I highly recommend Pneu Alex in Fällenden. The owner also speaks English and was very helpful.