Why buy wheels?

It's easier to change to snow tires if all you have to do is remove the non-snow tires on their rims and install the new snow tires on their rims. Anyone with a floor jack can do that easily.

It also offers less chance to damage the rims by not unmounting/remounting tires twice a year.

 

Unless you have a tire stretcher at home, the only way you are going to "switch tires" is to switch the entire wheel + tires.

If you take it to a tire-shop then yes they can take the tire off and put a new winter tire on. But usually they keep the old tire. Or at a minimum you are left with a bunch of tires with no wheels that you have to bring back to the shop and get them install when the season is over. The shops around here don't want to be spending a bunch of time installing tires they didn't sell.

That said, I bought a set of wheels and tires for winter. Wheels were only like $80/pc. You can get steelies for half that, but if you are taking a mpg hit with winter tires, might as well put lighter aluminum rims on.

 

The big deal for me is that fact that your wheels always get damaged when you mount new tires to them. Do this enough times and your wheels will start to look like hell.

Around my area it runs about $70+ to mount and balance.

 

+1
We got cheesy steel wheels for our studded Montana winter tires (not our Prius - on the AWD hybrid SUV). We go down to Big O, and they swap out the summer tires - and in a few minutes, we're good to go. No need to re-balance with every install. Saves a boat load of time. And the cheesy steel wheels were inexpensive - making their cost a great trade off.

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That's the thing: it keeps you tied to the pros, for constant remounting, and rebalancing, likely with a fresh valve every time. And the wear-and-tear. A set of utilitariian steel rims will set you back $50~70 per.

The parts department at dealer we purchased from gave me some cock-and-bull about the Prius being Toyota's "flagship" vehicle, with no steel rim option. I checked around with several other dealerships, and one finally came through with good advice regarding a compatible Corolla steel rim. They got the business.

If you're OEM wheels are alloys, switching to snows on steel rims will protect the alloys from winter salt and grit. And gives you an opportunity to detail the rims off the car.

Basically: if you have a garage/carport, floor jack, safety stands and torque wrench, you can free yourself from the pros. Plus, you can switch tires at your convenience. And if you don't, it's still a lot less hassle: having the pros just swap wheels, vs all the mounting/dismounting.

It would be worth doing a poll on this to verify, but I suspect the majority of snow tire users have them on extra rims.

 

Note that this charge appears twice per winter. And my cars experience winter at lot more than once, more like 15+ times each.

I delayed getting extra wheels for my Subaru by several years, and the extra tire work caused substantial rim damage and later corrosion. And once, they refused to remount tires that I had planned to use one more season.

Having extra wheels also means avoiding the day-long waiting lines when a forecast of early snow causes a mad rush to the tire shops.

 

Another item to possibly consider, is that some shops might try to charge for a new TPMS kit each time with the valve stem. This is another $5-8 per tire, also. I asked when I got my new tires & wheels mounted & balanced at the local pepboys. They said they highly recommend (they want the $$) a new kit to be installed each time a tire is removed and a new one mounted on the wheels. Also, in the winter is when you're more likely to slip/slide and be in a inclement weather related accident. I tend to see more curb checks, median hopping, etc in the winter (in one instance, a 90 degree slide, traction, up over the curb and into a ditch was witnessed). There's more potential for wheel damage in winter from those types of circumstances.

Check out TireRack periodically, too. They'll sometimes run specials where wheels are pretty discounted/discontinued. You can even get tires at the same time, mounted & balanced. Yes, you'll pay shipping, but in the end you might break even on initial purchase if you got wheels too.

 

"touchless" tire mounting? You have to stretch the tire over the rim somehow.

$40 isn't bad and if you're happy then good.

 

Jedi mind trick?

 

I was trying to be funny.