znod

Thanks Das,

To answer your questions:

- yes the sizes are up to date and are the recommended sizes, as per the attachment below.
- no spacers on the front, as I personally don't feel they are needed. These seem to fit the front better than my old M 135 rims.
- afraid I don't know the answer to your last question
EDIT - the road I took the pics on has a slight slope which causes the gap on the photographed side to be a bit bigger, than it would normally be when the car is on a flat surface.
[/quote]
They look great. Can you tell me how much they weight?

Peter530i

my man. Can't wait to get my exchanged next spring

Ricracing

Nice, those just might be the best looking wheel for the E60.

Have you tried without the rear spacers?

It almost seems like the tires are too wide now

BMW#7

Thanks Das,

To answer your questions:

- yes the sizes are up to date and are the recommended sizes, as per the attachment below.
- no spacers on the front, as I personally don't feel they are needed. These seem to fit the front better than my old M 135 rims.
- afraid I don't know the answer to your last question
EDIT - the road I took the pics on has a slight slope which causes the gap on the photographed side to be a bit bigger, than it would normally be when the car is on a flat surface.
[/quote]
They look great. Can you tell me how much they weight?
[/quote]

Front 15kg
Rear 16kg,

on a bathroom scale so allow some +/- 10% error

Centurion

BMW#5,

The car is looking great and the spacers help with the staggered appearance.
Nice job.

das

Yes, I do think these look great!

Interestingly, the web site image you included above shows the fronts as 8 x 19, while my dealer says they're 8.5 x 19 (which would make them the same as the Style 166).

One thing I noticed was that the Style 166 and Style 172 wheels have different offsets:

style 172:
front 18
rear 32

style 166:
front 12
rear 28

If I understand this correctly, that means the Style 172 stick out further from the hub than the Style 166? I'm a little concerned because of how much the fronts already seem to stick out on a 530xi in this thread. I've been trying to get to the bottom of why that would be the case on the xi, but so far, no luck...

BMW#7

Yes we need some expert input here...
I have also been wondering about the offset figures.

If you compare the M135 with the M172 wheels as per the pics below, the front offset of the 172's is less than the 135's, yet when you see them on the car the 172's seem to have less offset

das

Well, I can confirm that the Style 172 wheel is 8.5 x 19 front and 9.5 x 19 rear.

One other thing I have noticed in looking at the aspect ratios of the tires:

245/40-18 = 25.71 (stock style 123)

245/35-19 = 25.75
255/35-19 = 26.03
275/30-19 = 25.50
285/30-19 = 25.73

It appears that a 245/35-19 on the front with a 285/30-19 on the rear preserves the aspect ratio the most...which is interesting, because the combinations people choose tend to be 245/35-19 front and 275/35-19 rear, OR 255/35-19 front and 285/30-19 rear.

To complicate matters further, the US M5 uses 255/40-19 front and 285/35-19 rear! Now the car is obviously set up for that, but if we are to preserve the aspect ratio as much as possible on non-M cars with the 19 x 8.5 front and 19 x 9.5 rear, it seems that 245/35-19 front and 285/30-19 rear is the closest choice.

By this point, you might be thinking, hmm, that sounds good. But let's throw another wrench in the mix:

The cross-sectional width difference should be as close to 1" as possible between the two sets of tires, since the wheel width differential between front and rear is 1", to preserve the most similar sidewall characteristics between front and rear. So while the sidewall height is most similar between the 245 and 285, the cross sectional width differential is close to 1.5", while the cross sectional width differential between the 245 and 275, or 255 and 285 is - you guessed it - 1"...the difference between the wheel widths.

So what does all this mean? Ultimately, I think any of these combinations are close enough to be fine, assuming there is no rubbing or other problems. I think I'm going to settle on the 245/35-19 for front and 285/30-19 for rear, preserving the overall stock diameter as much as possible. I'll be really interested to see, though, if there is something about the xi that will cause me problems.

As for offset, as you say, it seems really confusing to me when you actually see some of the wheels. Wheels that specify a greater positive offset should stick out more, but actually sometimes appear to stick out less. As near as I can tell, the reason why this is ends up being because wheel width is also involved: the offset is an offset from the wheel's centerline. So to use your example:

Style 135
18 x 8: 8" wide, ET 20mm (0.79" offset) = 4" (wheel centerline) + 0.79" offset = 4.79" distance from hub

Style 172
19 x 8.5": 8.5" wide, ET 18mm (0.71" offset) = 4.25" (wheel centerline) + 0.71" offset = 4.96" distance from hub!

This means that even though the Style 135's offset appears 2mm greater than the Style 172, because the Style 172 wheel is 0.5" wider, it actually ends up sticking out 0.17", or almost 5mm, more than the Style 135.

So that explains why the Style 135 has a bigger offset but doesn't stick out as much as the Style 172 (which really is 8.5" wide on the front, by the way): the wheel width also comes into play.

Thanks for the pictures, BMW#5! Your car looks great!

BMW#7

I was calculating incorrectly then. Thanks for clearing that up, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.

Thanks Dave.

stream

Very nice!