As some of you will be aware I have been looking at replacing the rear tyres on my LCI 525d M Sport for the past month or so. I was aware that, and posted in another thread, the centre's of the rear tyres were worn flush with the 'wear bands' whilst the outter & inner edges of both still had at least 3-4mm left. Mileage from new is 19k miles.

Anyway, today I got them changed by a company my father contracts with (through his garage). Got the pair of ContiSport 2's for ?408 all in which I think is a very good price for the 275/30/19's non-RFT's. The added bonus being that I had a word with the boss and politely requested extra care be taken not to mark the 'un-marked' wheels and none was caused whatsoever - result!

When I inspected the tyres that were taken off I got a totally different view of the wear - shows how you can't fully inspect a tyre on the car. Anyway, the right rear tyres was indeed worn as outlined above (centre worn flush with the 'wear bands' whilst the outter & inner edges still had at least 3-4mm left). The effect of this is that the tyre appeared to have a 'dish' shape in the centre. The left rear tyre on the other hand was worn in a slightly different way - again centre worn flush with the 'wear bands' whilst the outter edge again had at least 3-4mm left. However, the inner edge was considerably 'feathered' - presumably highlighting an alignment problem - interesting.

A question I have is could this 'alignment problem' be the cause of the infamous crosswind issue I have been complaining about in another post, something that has been a problem from day one but has got progressively worse - I guess as the tyre wear set in.

Next question is will an alignment check / adjustment if required be covered by the warranty? I will certainly be paying the dealers a visit soon regarding this.

What are people's views?

 

All i would read into the wear you have is that the tyres have been running over inflated. You cant really tell about the feathering as the tyres were incorrect pressures. Over inflating causes the middle of the tyre to bulge out more than the edges where the sidewall holds it in.

 

Agree about the pressures as I stated in my other thread. However, over inflation would wear the centres prematurely NOT the edges. The fact 1 rear tyre has perfect edges and the other has 1 good edge and 1 with significant feathering suggests a problem to me. The guy who owns the company where I had the tyres fitted had a look and suggested in his experience, tyres of this kind of width do typically wear prematurely on the centres regardless of pressure - I know another member on here 'e60Scotland' has similar centre wear to this with similar mileage.

He went onto say it did look like an alignment issue causing the feathering on the other tyre.

 

Hi Palmo

I'm holding off as i'm still on the 2mm accross the centre and 3+mm on the oter bands, I've covered 20500mls and i would imagine have another couple of weeks worth of legal driving, when i have the tyres changed (it will definatly be Conti's) I'll try and remember to take some decent pictures to see if i have an even accross the back two tyres.

As you know the winds have been pretty bad these past few weeks and if honest my car has been solid as the preverbial rock in all weathers. I do hope you get your crosswind issue dealt with, did you happen to snap and pics of the worn conti's?

R

 

I'd gotten a puncture on my non-RFT 172 19's and got it repaired at a Ford Rapid Fit(they do odd jobs for the bimmer dealer next door like MOT's, punctures etc) -> the guy told me that he wouldnt be comfortable doing an alignment on the 5er coz BMW have some special equipment and the car actually gets sand bags put into the car as weights before alignment is done. BMW confirmed this and gave me an estimate for ?280 for a full alignment and a couple of hours labour. I never did the alignment done as the car's been fine but just something you may to check up on. You'll probably find that they'll class alignment as 'wear and tear' so not covered by warranty.

 

Funny as we seem to keep witin 1-1.5k miles of the distance covered of each other since we got our cars. Afraid I didn't get any pictures of the tyres.

I had to change mine as the back end was all over the place in the wet - which in the uk is about 90% of the time at the moment as you know.

 

Just a quick comment about the crosswinds. My car isn't any worse than my last car - a C270cdi touring.

I would also add that it isn't any better either.

Could it be that the issue Palmo had with crosswinds was when the road was damp and therefore connected to the worn tyres. In my experience, tyres definately "go off" sometime before they are illegal.

I had a Cavalier GSi 2000 about 13 years ago and suffered premature edge wear on the rear tyres. As a result I got the alignment checked out and it came out fine.

Once I put new tyres on I was a bit more diligent about the tyre pressures and the new set wore fine. Conclusion - my fault!

I will see how my rears wear and see if the centre wear affects me - only done 9000 miles so far so can't tell yet.

Must go, I haven't checked the pressures for 3 months - I am getting a feeling of de ja vue!

Regards,

 

I was due to get Goodyear GSD3's fitted today to replace my SC2's. My rears also have plenty of tread except in the centre where they are down to the indicators. I'd also support what palmo says about stability in X-winds - not as good as previous cars and not in the same league for stability as my RS4 running P Zero Rosso's.

I'll try and take a photo when my tyres are changed on Monday (and post it here) and see if its anything like you guys have witnessed with your cars.

 

Would be good if you could take a picture so I can compare - wish I had taken a picture myself now. How many
miles have yours done?

 

Just turned 20K on the car & tyres.