I'd had my 439 falkens since 2007 and realised they were past their best, with only 4mm tread left - in deep snow they were starting to struggle and last weekend they needed the help of chains to get up to altitude in deep snow slopes in the pyrenees, when others had managed to get to the top on just winter tyres.
Just got a good set of 270M M3 wheels from another e90poster (thanks dave) which I've put some Vred Wintracs on. I was happy with the Falkens when they had decent tread (now Eur120 each in 225/40/18), but thought I'd try something different (vreds Eur150 in the same size).
No rubbing at all with my standard set up, despite the large ET20 offsets. Drives well, but we'll see this weekend how it copes with snow in the mountains. Chains will be a squeeze if needed, but I have a plan for that, and the tread looks like it will cope well even on a decent slope.
One thing I would recommend, don't leave your winters on when you don't need them - not for any driving reasons, but just so they last as long as possible - I clearly did ok getting 6/7 winters out of mine, but several years I left them on well into spring and almost summer, just as i didn't get around to changing - in hindsight I wore them down for no reason (though of course my summers would have worn instead). Its obvious, but winters do really need decent tread to work well in snow.
