Hey guys, yet another wheel & tyre question :P
I'm looking at getting new tyres, and potentially new rims and tyres, and I was wondering if having staggered fitment of wheels is bad at all for our AWDs? I had a search around & didn't find anything on this specifically.

I know according to the owner's manual and my dad, having matching tread pattern on all 4 wheels is important, as well as keeping all 4 wheels roughly around the same tread wear levels, but what about differences in width? Say if I found a second-hand set of wheels & tyres that were evenly worn and the same tyre/tread pattern on all 4, but the fronts were 8 inches wide, and the rears were 8.5 or 9 inches wide? Would that be bad for the diff(s)?

Thinking about it, if it's potentially bad to run different treads or uneven wear, and that unbalance wouldn't be good, then the increase in width would also upset the balance, wouldn't it?
Could this then be solved (if necessary) by stretching tyres of the same width as the fronts, onto the wider rears? Just a thought...

AWD and 4x4s must have the same sized wheels at all 4 corners according to the road regs.

So, no offset wheel sizes for us.

I wouldn't mess with what you're talking about - running same size tyre on 2 different sized rims will result in a different rolling diameter as one sidewall won't flex the same as the other.
Plus, not legal means you're insurance company might abandon you just when you need them.

As for keeping the tyres exactly the same front & rear, that's not too important for us because our centre diff is LSD. You should run the same tyres all round, but don't be concerned if the fronts wear out faster than the rear.
Keeping the tyres even is more important in a real 4x4 with a transfer case (not most soft roaders) because the transfer case is normally locked, not lsd, and if your front & rear tyres are different sized, it can damage the driveline if there's enough traction to cause binding.

... real 4x4 with a transfer case (not most soft roaders) ...
Not disagreeing with the point you made, but just wanted to add that the AWD IS a real four wheel drive (with a transfer case)! As i understand it, its a type of four wheel drive just as much as a part time four wheel drive is or any other type of four wheel drive. All these terms, like AWD, 4X4, 4WD, IWD and so on are just marketing terms that have "stuck" over time.

Agree - the Magna's AWD is better than most soft roaders - Magna has a LSD centre & rear diff and open front diff.

IMO a "real 4x4" has to have a locked centre. But it's just IMO. It's these ones with locked centre diff or transfer case which have to be careful of transmission binding.

Because the Magna has centre LSD, it's going to slip and not bind up the transmission if there's odd size wheels & tyres front to rear, but I am guessing that odd sizes might put constant load on the LSD and overheat the oil causing premature wear. If I'm right, I have no idea if that would take 5,000kms to make a difference or 500,000 :)

Thanks so much for your responses and clarification :)

Just one thing... What do you mean by:

So, no offset wheel sizes for us.?

offset wheel sizes = staggered fitment in Oggy speak. :)

Ah sweet, no worries :) Thanks for clearing all that up, maybe come next week I might have a new set of wheels :D (And maybe I should get around to making a ride thread too, haha!)