Hi there,
I am currently in a rather long warranty dispute with BMW UK concerning all 4 of my RFT wearing abnormally. This was after a rear wheel blow out at 70 on the motorway sending me into the hard shoulder. BMW customer service claim its my fault for not checking the tires, although this is a recognised fault in the USA.

What I want to do is find out how many other people in the UK have had this problem what model of car, which brand of tire and which dealer so I tally this all up to BMW UK.

Before I get totally flamed by those that think 12k on a set of RFT tires is acceptable you should be aware that my tire exploded without warning and wasn't picked up be me or my garage. The wear is on the very outside of the tire and it is about 10mm wide so you will never notice it.

The whole sidewall came away from the tire tread, maybe its a bad batch not sure but I am sure as hell am not going to be blamed by BMW because I didn't check the tire?s weekly for wear.

Anyway apart from that it?s a great car and I love the drive shame it?s a death trap with these tires.


Please PM me your details and we can all work together to help BMW UK see the error of their ways.

Thanks

Steve

 

can you please tell us what kind of RFTs you have? (dunlop?, bridgestone? goodyear? etc?)

 

I replaced the 2 fronts on my E60 with the same (Bridgestone RE050A) and had the tracking changed as the inner was totally scrubbed away.

Geometry was spot on and tyres replaced. I was advised by the tyre tech that new 5's ran a lot of -ve camber.

The old tyres had done about 15k, which isn't a huge mileage.

I'm now running slightly higher tyre pressure at the front.

To be honest, I think if you RTM you'll see that you're going to struggle to claim from BMW as tyres should be a regular check.

Good luck and please let us know how this progresses.

 

Thanks for your help and the fact that the USA have a replacement policy for RFT if they wear out to quick ie at 20k or under shows a problem.

I have read over and over people saying that 12k is fine for a set of tires to wear out and what are we all going on about but to me it is totally unacceptable and I would like a job wherever they work so I can speed 1k every 6 months on tires.

Also I have a Subaru Impreza P1 that I spank the living daylights out of and still get 35k to a set of Pirellis. While I understand that my E61 sport is heavier it doesn?t detract from the fact the tire failed unexpectedly at high speed and well within an exceptible miliage.

I am starting to think that these BMW?s are too heavy for RFT?s.

I have some pictures of the tires but cant upload them for some reason

 

Changed mine (RE050A) at 12,000 miles through choice, no abnormal wear and still some 5 mm left.

 

It's a little tricky. You have to upload them first and then paste them into the body of the text...

 

My Dunlops lasted just under 20k. Rears were more worse than fronts but fronts were near the legal limit anyway. So changed all of them to Bridgestone Potenza RE050As, didn't fancy the Dunlops after reading the posts on this forum during the past 2 and half years. Wanted the Goodyear's as heard that they were slightly softer rubber so less noise but dealer was out of stock.

The tyre man at the dealer said the RFTs are very sensitive to the tyre pressures. If pressures are slightly out they will wear more. In particular you need to look at the inside/inner half of the tyres as they wear more than the outside/outer.

 

I am about to have to replace my runflats (Dunlop 225/50 R17) at just over 14K miles. The tyres on my previous E-Class lasted untill 29K miles and I drive this car no differently. I think Autocar & BMW need a reality check, the ride is awful, the car tramlines which makes you want to compensate and they are overtly firm and unforgiving.
Unfortunately mine is a leased car so I will replace with runflats although definately not Dunlop. Its a pity Mitchelin have not yet released all the sizes of their zero pressure tyres otherwise I would get those. As it is Im trying to get the Goodyear NCT5s.

 

Indeed, I expected better from AutoExpress. However, they have always slated the 5-series for its ride on RF's and praised the 3-series... They were testing the 3-series, go figure