rice_rocket88

I tried searching for tire rotation... nobody seems to have a thread on it.

I have a simple question about the TPMS. I have a 2008 535xi and I know I have the recalibrate TPMS option.

The car is relatively new to me, and the thought dawned upon me when I was by my friends shop to change the oil.. he was saying you need a computer to reset the oil indicator and did so. Good thing I was just going to do it myself, but since he ordered some of this liquid moly stuff that seems popular, he just did it for me.

I was going to rotate my tires, and realized i don't know how or if the relearn TPMS will work correctly. Before I go to the pains of doing it.. is it that simple? Rotate front to back and vice versa, and click TPMS relearn.. or is it going to get wonky and I need to go to my friend to program a tire rotation?

Thanks in advance!

JayArras

If I'm not mistaken, you shouldn't have to recalibrate the TPMS after the tire rotation, as long as the same sensors are being used.

If your tires are rotatational (i.e. there are directional arrows on the sidewalls), then yes, you would swap back to front and vice versa. If they are not, then you are free to swap diagnally if you wish.

There is controversy as to whether tire rotation is necessary on an xi. Here are some threads for reference.

https://5series.net/forums/tires-whe...rotate-128696/

rice_rocket88

Thanks for the quick reply.. you forgot the links about the tire rotation

I just didn't know since the display shows each tire, if it'll relearn the position of it.

I have an extra set of winter tires that came with the XI, and I measured the tread depth. 2 are 5/32 and the other are 8/32 which leads me to believe it did wear in the backs a lot more/faster.. My car came off of CPO so the current tires are very new.. so I'm debating the tire rotations, at the same time of whether or not I'll even bother using the winter tires.

I have run all season on all my AWD cars for the last 8 years of not having storage for winter/summer tire switch.. since I don't race anymore either I don't care about the serious performance of either direction..

JayArras

Check the links above.

rice_rocket88

Thanks again!

JayArras

I tend to just do the rotation from year to year when I changeover my seasonal tires. No in-between rotation. I've come to believe in buying snow tires, especially with the winters we've had in New England these past couple of years. Plus, it extends the life of my other set.

twh

BMW recommends not to rotate tires. Also, I've found that on my two AWD BMW's (530xi and X5) that the tires really wear pretty evenly front and back and don't really benefit from tire rotation.

rice_rocket88

I'll probably go measure out my tires now to see the wear. My car came off of CPO so the all season tires are extremely meaty. I've been driving with all seasons for my lifetime.. only when I was racing my car a lot is when I had different sets of rims. It was really a financial and storage thing living in a 1 br condo. Now that I have a house, it's just me being lazy since I only drive the car on the highway to work every day and I wait until plows etc have had their time to do their thing.

The car came with winter tires, but I measured them and it was 5/32 on 2 of them and 8/32 on the other which made me believe it really did not wear evenly. I do occasionally punch it and get it to slide around corners for fun. I also park my car in a parking garage, and I know all the tight turns going up and down it wears the tires faster.

Thanks for the input.. I'll just measure my tires, and decide if they are wearing very unevenly that I can swap them. I really wanted to know what was with the TPMS and if I had to do something funky to get it to recognize the tires in the right spot.

audiophool

Since I swap tires fall and spring, I always check the tread depth and put the ones with more tread on the BACK where they should be (since you can't steer the rear end and hence need the most traction there).

Afterwards, I adjust the tire pressure to spec then reset the TPMS. All good.

rice_rocket88

So of course now that I started the thread I found some problems. We hit our first 22 degree night and my tpms light went on in the morning. I drove it a few miles to see if it would go away but pulled off to a parking lot before I hit the highway.

Left rear tire low. . So I filled it up a bit to 40 psi. Went on the highway and it went off eventually. I got to work and decided to check all the tires. . Well it was the right rear that was low at 34psi.

So I know for a fact i hit the rest tpms before. . So why did the tpms indicate the wrong tire? I reset the tpms again on the way home.

This worries me about rotating the tires if it's going to get all wonky. FYI the tires are wearing one 32nd differently now.