vegastrashed

Rody,
By the looks of your pics and you mentioning it, the INVOs do appear to have a square sidewall like the Falkens. I'm not sure I want to go down that path again.

ivan545

i agree nitto tires are great, i have the NItto Neo GEN tires. +1 for NITTO

rodybmw

A couple of more things to add:

One thing that surprised me when I switched to the INVO's from the original runflats is that I did not feel the ride was more comfortable. For years now I have read people's comments on how much more comfortable and smooth the ride is when they switch to non-runflats, even when comparing a lower profile non-runflat tire vs. the original higher profile runflats. Well I noticed a marginal improvement, but then I have noticed that every single time I have switched from old worn tires to brand new ones over the past 20 years. So I can't contribute the marginal improvement in ride comfort and smoothness to the INVO's, I experienced a similar improvement when BMW replaced my original runflats with a new set of runflats a couple of years ago. This doesn't necessarily bother me because I prefer a slightly firmer ride anyways, but I just wanted to mention that the INVO's did not feel all that much "less harsh" than the old runflats did when they were new.

Another issue has to do with tire width. Joe and some of the others on this board know of my obsession with tire width vs. wheel width. Basically I don't like it when the tire's sidewall seems to be barely flush with the wheel's lip (or even worse, when the wheel's lip looks like it's further out than the tire's sidewall/lip). For this reason I went with 255/285's instead of 245/275 which is what BMW uses on 8.5" and 9.5" wheels respectively. Well, I have to say that I am disappointed with the width of the INVO's. They seem narrower than some other tires, the front ones especially. The 245 Conti's on the LCI 550's (on the same 172 wheels) look wider than my 255 INVO's, which are BARELY flush with the wheel,....if that. This is mostly due to the better wheel protection lip on the Conti's where it protrudes more from sidewall on the 245's than my INVO 255's. Once you go further up on the sidewall the Conti's seem SLIGHTLY narrower (as they should, after all it is 245 vs.255). This is partly because the Conti's shoulders are less square, but at the critical point where the tire lip meets the wheel lip the Conti's look better as well as offer more wheel protection. Checking the specs of both the INVO's and the Conti shows that the 245/35-19 Conti is only 0.2" narrower than the 255/35-19 INVO, which is more than made up for with the Conti's lip protection. Also the Conti in 255/35-19 is 0.3" wider than the same size INVO. The rear 285/30-19 INVO's are not as bad. They still don't offer much of a wheel protection lip, but the sidewall itself is sufficiently wider than the wheel lip.

Bad Bimr

+1
I was thinking the same thing. I felt I was reading a advertisement.

BP

vegastrashed

ICEMAN316, KnIgHtCoM and I are very limited in which brand of tires we can use. The three of us run 285/25/20 tires. So, based on this very limiting factor there are only four brands available from the following websites: Toyo, Falken, Yokohama and Pirelli. Looking over the reviews on 1010tires.com, what some consider a second tier brand, Toyo, is ranked better than a first tier, Pirelli. But, then of course, you can see on Discount Tires that the Pirelli are rated better than Yokohama, which happened to have the highest review on 1010tires. All in all, there isn't too much that separates these four brands. So, a new player is offering a tire in this size (285/25/20). It wouldn't hurt to try them out before blasting the brand (Nitto) for another model's deficiencies. And, ICEMAN316 happens to like them thus far. I googled Nitto INVO last night and came across this thread.

rpav

How funny this thread came up. I took the car in to have a nail removed on the left rear only to find out that both rear tires were worn out and splitting on the inside sidewalls. The only tire the shop had in stock were the Falkens. I left the toyos on the front for now but i do have a small leak in the front right. Wonder if its the tire after reading this post. Anyways i will get a little more of my money out the the fronts and then get the Falkens up there also. I guess i wont get to see the total performance out of the Falkens until i have all four on.

Rudy

Hey rodybmw, I wonder if you'd have a better experience with the Nittos if you put a big Nitto decal on your car?

(J/K iceman316... )

rodybmw

rodybmw

Well, I had my tires balanced on a Hunter GSP9700 Road Force machine and according to them the results were:

1. The wheels are good (not bent or anything).

2. The tires don't have flatspots.

So did it make any difference? Maybe a little bit, but the vibrations are still there . I have to check the tire pressures to see what they adjusted them to and re-adjust them if necessary, but as of this point I still have vibrations....starting at about 65 or 70MPH and up.

Heloha

There must be a million reasons for abnormal tire where. It seams like if you have suspension mods the tire wear is greatly effected. + don't forget, I read on the forum all the time the multiple 0-60 passes guys are making which also has a great effect on suspension/tire geometry...specially on the rear wear.

In Toyo's defense, I just replaced my rears after 35K+ issue free miles. I admit, I should have gotten a little more mileage out of them, but I was careless about having the rear alignment checked and the drivers rear wore out on the inside. The outside looked great! and I only found out about the bad wear when I thought a screw was making my pressure sensors go off...As you can see there is a lot of tread left. I agree though, a stiffer side wall would better the life but also increase harshness. I thought that 35K was actually pretty good for a performance tire and was actually set to switch to what seams like everyones old favorite Michelin PS2s. When the tire dealer said my fronts were fine, I just went with the Toyo's again so all would match. The only reason I considered switching brands is the ride did deteriate at the end which after replacing with new treads, the ride is nice again! I expect when I replace the fronts (now with 40K+ on them), the ride will improve even more! Of course...new tires always feel better than wornout ones in the beginning. I have had to my suprise, great success with Toyo. Now I may be gun-shy to pull the trigger on lowering, but I think propper alignment is the key as previously mentioned.