I have heard of them but had not had any personal experience with them. My tyre place recommended them so i did some research and they are an Italian company who are now owned by Pirelli. They recently won the UHP tyre shoot out in Motor Magazine in the December 07 edition against the likes of Yokahama, Bridgestone and all the other usual suspects. They also had good feedback on a few forums i checked out so i thought i would give them a shot. On my 18's i had Bridgestone Potenza RE050A's and before that Goodyear somethings, i was not overly impressed with either of them so i went for someting differant at slightly lesser cost and so far so i am very pleased with my decision.

I love the SB and would be very reluctant to take it off, i think it has made a marked improvement on the drivability and fun factor of the car. It did take a little while to get used to and i found it worked much better after i reset the trans, before that it ws a little jerky and seemed to be gear hunting.

Mine is early 05 with the key start

 

That silver gray steals the show! Nice rims.

 

Thanks mate! I see you are from the windy city, i travel there on business from time to time, it is a beautiful city.

 

that looks awesome! good choice!

 

Looks awesome!

 

i want those!

 

If you don't mind what did the tyres set you back and how is the steering/stability compared to the RE050A runflats (I know the ride was poor but I felt the cornering and stability of the RE050ARF was amazing)?

I changed my RE050A's after 25k to Falken 452's. The ride is much better and they are pretty good tyres but I miss the preciseness of the turn and the high speed stability of the RF's - shame the ride sucked. I have done 17k on the Falken's and am considering PS2's or something else now. I want to see if I can get it to feel a bit more like it did with the RF's in the corners and turn in but with a bit better ride.

Sorry if there are too many questions but it's good to have an Aussie who knows what our roads are like to get some feedback from.

 

Good choice.I love those wheels...

 

Dont be sorry it is great to be able to talk with other Aussies with E60's, there is not that many of us about and hardly any on the board.
I paid AUD 1350.00 for the set which IMO was a steal given the quality of the tyres, as a comparison i piaid AUD 2200.00 for my 050A RFT's and that was 18" and not staggered. I have not done many kms so these are my inital impressions only. The ride does not seem to have changed a great deal, from the comments i have read on the board i thought there would have been a more noticable change in the comfort factor but i have not noticed it . There is a slight change in the steering, it seems a little more direct which is probably due to the lower profile on the 19's. One thing i did not like about the Potenza's was the tyre wall seemed soft, when i was throwing the car around i could feel the side wall really flexing. The car came with Goodyear RTF's an they seemd to have a much more ridgid side wall which i much prefered. The Marangoni's also seem to have a very ridgid sidewall and seem very stable when chucking the big boy around. It took the tyre shop 45 minutes per wheel to get the tyres on becasue of the size and also they said the Marangoni's are one of the worst tyres to put on as they have very little flex when levering them on.
I had a set of 19'' Falken 452's on anotoher car of mine and i had problems with them, i am sure i was just got a bad egg but this kind of put me off Falken. I have not had any expeirence with the PS2's, I am pretty sure my wifes Touareg has Michelin's on it but hardly a good referance point.
Let me know which way you end up going.

Cheers
Mat

 

$1,350 is a steal for the sizes you are running. Thanks for the feedback I will have a sniff around here for them and see what they are worth. The Falkens have been okay and have plenty of life left in them. The grip is not bad, ride is quieter and far smoother on all surfaces but I defintely feel more flex, the steering is not as sharp and they feel less stable on high speed corners than the RE050A's were. The bottom line is the car feels less BMW Sport like than it used to. The other issue I have is I refuse to replace a tyre if I get a flat. The Falkens have already saved me $500 on that front.

In your case some of the ride quality increase you would expect to feel changing out from the RFT's has no doubt been negated by the increase in size to the 19's.

PS: What did you do with the old wheels?