So my grandma owns it, but I maintain it for her... Im not a fan of modern FCA products, but she loves it so I will do what I can to keep it on the road.

Its a 2017 Jeep Cherokee 4wd with the 3.6l. Has the 245/60/17 tires. She currently has 4 all seasons(goodyear weatherready). Great tires for the summer. We live in northern wisconsin. Its gonna be drowning in snow soon.
I tried to tell her she should get snow tires and she responded with she has all seasons and 4wd so shes good.(which is objectively not true). Mind you we also live out in the country, where plowed roads are a neighborly thing more than a county thing.

Ive used snow tires and Ive seen the studies and tests. Snow tires are infinitely more helpful on a car so much so that a 2wd snow tired car is much better than a 4wd with all seasons. Now a 4wd with snow tires? A tank.
Im going to buy new wheels and tires for her because she's gonna be safer whether she likes it or not.

Anyway, Im not having trouble finding wheels, I did find some steelies that claim they will fit and for another 150, I could get wheels that look a lot like stock that would work too. Not my biggest concern. But my main questions:
-Would 16 inch wheels fit on this vehicle? Tires are cheaper, ride is better, and wheels are cheaper with a smaller wheel.
-Is there a tire such as the 245/60/17 that is the same height but narrower that I could buy? Skinnier tires tend to do better in the snow. Not absolutely necessary, but trying to find a website to tell me if anything would match height is hard, wondering if any of yall had experience with that.
-Does putting the 4wd selector in snow vs auto actually help in snow?
-Does anyone have a snow tire they recommend?

 

Try this website TireSize https://tiresize.com/tiresizes/225-65R17.htm great information. I would be careful not to go "bigger" or "wider" than stock, if you can help it (programing the transmission and tire spacers can be tricky). You will also have TPMS senors to consider so you may want to look at OEM replacements or just mounting snow tires on the existing rims. Shifting into "Snow" vs. "Auto" will give you much better traction and control. If you google Jeep Cherokee Active 1 or Active 2 system, there is plenty of info and videos to explain it. With the tire size you gave, it sounds like she may have the "trailhawk" edition, which most likely has the Active 2 system.

 

The Trailhawk should have the active drive lock system, check the Jeep website for descriptions. As I recall they have some videos you can watch, maybe have grandma watch them too.

I have the weatherready on my mother's Jeep Cherokee (2014, Active drive 2). Granted where I live it is not as bad as rural Wisconsin, but the tires are rated for winter driving. Not as good as dedicated winter tires, but they are decent.

You will probably be best trying a junkyard to find a set of rims that may come with tpms sensors, and just mount winter tires to them. I think driving without tpms sensors would probably set off bells and chimes that would drive her crazy.

 

16" rims were not an option, and when I measured my 2014 TH 16" wheels would hit the calipers. Remind Grandma that 4wd doesn't help you stop faster. Lots of folks around here need 4wd to get out of the ditch when they forget that. I couldn't find anything cheap locally with the right offset and ended up ordering a set of alloy wheels and studless tires from TireRack (around $800 a I recall). I didn't get them with TPMS because they wanted $65 a wheel to add them and just ignored the tpms warning. I recently ordered a set of sensors for $34 from Amazon and the local shop will install them for $50.

 

Yes TPMS is not an issue for me. I am aware of the wheel size and not going bigger on tires, I asked if anyone knew of skinnier tires of the proper height.

 

Plug the size into https://tiresize.com/calculator/ for suggested alternate sizes that might be easier to find in a snow tire.

 

Ive learned a lot so far.. I decided Im going to stick with the original tire size, since the only way to really get a skinnier tire is to get a tire that would only be 6 inches wide.. which is nearly impossible to find a wheel for that in a 17 inch.

Anyone have experience with steel rims?

 

Sticking with the same size tire is probably your best bet. Hopefully being that they are only used for like 4 months a year, depending on mileage, you will probably get a good 6 years out of them if you store them inside, away from sunlight, when not in use.

I think that you may be able to get rims off of rockauto. Keystone had some for my 2014, they were like 250 for a set of four, with shipping.

If I were you, I would call around to a couple junkyards near you to see if you may be able to get a set of rims off a wrecked Cherokee. They would probably be about that price or maybe even cheaper.

 

Get Trailhawk tires, which are Falken Wildpeaks. They're Kevlar-coated and Outline White-Lettered (OWL). For wheels, you could get a set of 17" Cherokee Sport styled steel wheels and mount them. Maybe even paint them black to look cooler.

-Vince

 

generally, with snow/winter tires, you would go down one rim size, so from 17 to 16, just to give you more sidewall. but if you say 16s won't fit, then i guess you stick with 17s. you shouldn't have a hard time finding cheap black steelies. that what we all use up here. cheap, and if you slip into a curb, it's only 50 bux for a replacement.

up here in northern ontario, canada, we are allowed to use studded tires, so my go to tire is nokian hakkapeliitta 8 tires. they stick like glue. you can also get them non studded in the R3. but any winter/snow tire should suffice with 4wd.

i use my stock bf goodrich AT K0s on my rubicon, and they do pretty good.

 

A bit lat to the party but there's no reason to buy wheels. Just have the snow tires put on the factory wheels and store the stock tires until spring. That will be easier than storing tires and wheels after winter is over.

 

this would work too, in a pinch. but it gets expensive after a while. you're looking at the very least of 100 bux every time you swap them out, plus the hour or so in the shop, during their busiest time, tire season. it gets hard to find a shop with the time to do a job like that.
best would be to just get a second set of mounted, balanced snows. most shops have a tire storage option, then it's only like 15 minutes in and out to swap the wheels.

 

IF you have storage space (I know of no one storing customer tires/wheels for free), and you can, and you want to load tires w/ wheels in and out of your car then there's no reason not to purchase a second set of shoes. Most people could actually just run a good all season M+S tire year around without issue. Or just run a good snow tire (Blizzak, Nokian...) year around. That solves the whole issue. One of the easiest things to do is to go on craigslist and find someone selling tires/wheels for the exact vehicle you (universal you) have.

 

X2 on getting a second set of rims instead of spending a fortune to swap tires on/off twice a year. You can even mail order wheels with tires already mounted from places like TireRack and DiscountTire online and never have to see the tire shop. Every time you swap tires on/off the rims, you risk damaging the TPMS sensors. Tire shops are swamped on the day after the first snow . They tend to hire in temporary help for that week and do rush jobs with guys who just learned how to mount/dismount tires that morning, so the quality can suffer on those days.

 

I cast another vote for getting a full spare set of wheels. The rims and a set of snow specific tires mounted to those rims.

The first thing is the tires. Snow specific tires are worth more than their weight in gold (actually, aside from a few other very rare compounds.. pound for pound, printer cartridge ink is one of the most valuable commodities available on the market.).. To rephrase - snow specific tires are worth more than their weight in printer cartridge ink! It is all about the materials used to form making the snow tires. It is not so much going to be about the tread pattern. A beefy mud, mountain, or all terrain tire with aggressive tread patterns will still suck to use driving on them rolling over snow covered slick roads. A MS designated tire is certainly better than a street tire, but not exactly by a whole lot compared to a snow specific tire. Driving a snow specific tire year round when you live or drive in a place that gets warm and dry makes zero sense... You'll just ruin them and wear them out, and that gets expensive quicker than if you had a designated set to swap out.

Swapping out for a set of snow specific tires costs you a little extra money up front. However, doing so significantly increases the life of your street and warm weather summer tires by a lot! The money spent up front to use a designated set of snow tires saves you exponentially in the long run if you live in a region that sees several months worth of winter snow driving conditions.

You do not need blinged out rims or anything special to mount snow tires on either. The cost of an extra set of rims to use is miniscule.

Cooper & Bridgestone branded snow tires are good in my opinion. I like the Cooper stud-able snow tires. They look like a great snow tire to me. Especially, if you live rural and/or are able to be puting the studs on them.

(edited to add):
I also do not understand? How is it going to be easier storing a spare set of tires -vs- storing a spare set of wheels (tires mounted on rims)? If the tires are mounted on the rims... The outer diameters of the tires is what determines how much storage space you need. The only thing that really changes for storing them when the tires are already pre-mounted on the rims is the weight. How does that really make sense saying it would be easier to store just a set of tires -vs- storing a pre-mounted set of wheels on rims?

I guess if you wanted to hang them up or something? But, you could still hang a pre-mounted set of wheels just about the same if you wanted. Maybe, if you wanted to place them on a rack should the rack have a weight limit maybe yes.. But, you could still store a pre-mounted set of wheels on a rack. They would still take up the same amount of space needing to be used that way too.