Can I do a staggered set up?

Is it possible to do a staggered set up on an xi with out killing the awd? What is the widest that i could go? My car is stock suspension height (for now at least). I'm thinking something in 18" range cause I saw a coupe yesterday at work that had a cracked rear shock mount from 19" wheels and an H&R lowering kit, so I'm a little nervous about 19" unless this is really rare. Oh and sorry if this is a repost.

usually staggered setups are a no-no on all-wheel drive cars...i am no pro but this is what i have gathered. If you really want a staggered look, you can get staggered lips from a company like DPE, i-forged, HRE. And mainly its the tires that shouldnt be staggered, not the rims. So say if you bought some 18x8.5 front and 18x9 or even 9.5 you could potentially run 235's or even 245's on all four wheels. Just some things to think about

Originally Posted by 03M3

usually staggered setups are a no-no on all-wheel drive cars...i am no pro but this is what i have gathered. If you really want a staggered look, you can get staggered lips from a company like DPE, i-forged, HRE. And mainly its the tires that shouldnt be staggered, not the rims. So say if you bought some 18x8.5 front and 18x9 or even 9.5 you could potentially run 235's or even 245's on all four wheels. Just some things to think about

Why shouldnt the tires be staggered? How does it change things?

Originally Posted by panzr15

Why shouldnt the tires be staggered? How does it change things?

To be quite honest i am not really sure. But I am a big audi fan, and surf audiworld as well as audizine. As you probably know most audis are all wheel drive. I have just always heard that it was best to have the same size rubber all the way around. Many people on audizine run different width rims with the same tires. I would imagine that having an all-wheel drive car, with the power distributed to all wheels, that had different rubber at the wheels would understeer. But again i am no pro. Then again the porsche turbo and gt2 are all wheel drive cars with staggered set-ups. But i believe their systems are a different balance (40 percent up front, 60 in the back), where as your 330 is probably 50/50. Again you probably want to talk to gary@tirerack, who is a pro, i am just telling you what i have learned

Originally Posted by 03M3

To be quite honest i am not really sure. But I am a big audi fan, and surf audiworld as well as audizine. As you probably know most audis are all wheel drive. I have just always heard that it was best to have the same size rubber all the way around. Many people on audizine run different width rims with the same tires. I would imagine that having an all-wheel drive car, with the power distributed to all wheels, that had different rubber at the wheels would understeer. But again i am no pro. Then again the porsche turbo and gt2 are all wheel drive cars with staggered set-ups. But i believe their systems are a different balance (40 percent up front, 60 in the back), where as your 330 is probably 50/50. Again you probably want to talk to gary@tirerack, who is a pro, i am just telling you what i have learned

The xi's are something like 65-35 i believe, but ill ask gary.

The problem is it's difficult getting front and rear tires that have the exact same outside diameter when the widths are different. With AWD your front and rear axles should turn at the same rate (on average) because they are mechanically connected by the AWD drive train. If you have different diameter tires as a result of a staggered setup the front and rear axles will want to turn at different rates.

Check out this thread for more info:
http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=272659