B5.5 winter wheels / tyres - 6" wide - best offset?

[stuart.cookson]

Hi folks,

I'm after your thoughts... I've recently bought my first Passat and with the weather on the turn I'm thinking I should put winter tyres on it. I haven't used winter tyres before but read much about their benefits toward the end of last winter and I'm sold on the idea, even if very few others in the UK are!

My question is this: what's the best offset to go for on 15" diameter, 6" wide wheels? The car currently has the OEM 16" 7-spoke Sport alloys (7" wide I believe) but I'm thinking of buying some steelies for the winter tyres. This is to save hassle in winters to come, and also because 195/65/15s are a good bit cheaper than 205/55/16s.

I've been trawling eBay and it looks like I could get OEM VW 15" steel wheels, 5x112, in offsets ranging from ET35 (Transporter T4), all the way up to ET60 (Sharan I think it was). I don't want them to look stupid, tucked right in the arches, but I don't want to mess the suspension geometry up either. I understand the OEM 7" wide rims are ET37 - how far should I be able to stray from that with a 6" wide rim?

I would welcome your thoughts and experiences...

Thank you,
Stuart