I recently purchased a Cert. Pre-Owned 2001 A4 1.8T from a dealer near Boston and the car has been awesome. My girlfriend managed to bump a curb when she was parking about two weeks ago and blew out the right front tire. I replaced it with the spare that was in the car and we've both driven it a bit since then, maybe about 250 miles or so. I decided to replace all 4 tires and as I was researching new ones I happen to notice that the spare I had put on the car is a 16" while the rest of the stock tires are the standard 15s. I'm thinking of calling the dealer and finding out what might have happened. This certainly doesn't seem normal. Secondly, I'm wondering if this might have caused any damage to the tie rod or anything considering the size difference (and the crappy state of the roads around here.) Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

A reply to my own question - dealership says this is a mistake but is naturally reluctant to replace it and give me a matching 15 inch rim. I assume I just need to work my way up the chain of command until I can just swap out the spare - or they can just give me 4 new 16inchers to match! Ha!

 

yea they better replace the spare atleast. i dont think any damage was done ur car prob drove better than it would with a 15 in spare cause those things are smaller anyways

 

Maybe uneven tire wear. But you probably have nothing to worry about if it was only for that short of a distance.

Steve

 

Screw your tie rod, if the overall diameter of the tire is different, you could have caused damage to the quattro! ... if your car is quattro...

 

The car does have Quattro and I had considered potential damage with that as well. I'm getting new tires as we speak and obviously taking the 16 off. Out of curiosity, what might be some noticeable symptoms of a problematic Quattro system?

Thanks to everyone for their input!

-Travis

 

I have no idea what the symptoms would be... i understand that the quattro would constantly be in use, so it might overheat or something that like, and sieze. I'm talking from experience with my eagle talon... stupid car.
Just measure the overall tire diameter. tirerack has this info for you, if you know the exact sizes of the tires.