Today, I went to the wheel place to have my new TPM Sensors put on my replica #166 Tires.
I bought 19" 245/275 configuration from Lake Shore Wheel (on the internet) with General Exclaim Tires for $1600 (advertised as balanced on a Hunter machine--so I thought!). I went to a wheel place in Miami that advertises in all the major auto mags. (www.wheelboutique.com). They had a Hunter 9700 machine and I watched everything and asked questions.

First, the 2007 530i does require new sensors. They took approximately 2 minutes to put on each tire. They simply pushed the tire to one side and put on the sensor. All was great.

I asked the wheel place to test the existing balance on the Hunter machine before installing the sensor. They determined that Lake Shore had not balanced the tires correctly. This led to a lot of vibration. I told the guy at Lake Shore when I ordered the tire that I would be reporting back here to help his company if he did a good job. Well, he obviously is not getting my recommendation.

Wheel Boutique balanced all four wheels and put on the sensors for $100. The drive is now really good.

The wheel guy had some H&R spacers in various sizes. My replica wheels were 19x9 instead of the OEM 19x9.5. The 0.5 less of a wheel size means 12.5 centimeters. Thus, we tried 30mm spacers (the equivalent of 18mm spacers for OEMs). They look beautiful on my car.
A bit of a warning for the Aluminum hubcentric rings (only for people with replica wheels who need the 74/72.56 hubcentrics). The hubs rust very easily on the 530i in Miami. Thus, the hubcentric rings will not come off unless you nerarly break them. We actually found that when we took a knife to cut them off away from the car, they slide off without fully breaking (trying to pry them off with a screwdriver is a mistake because they are too thin and will break).

The 20mm spacers cost $160 installed. The next steps is to lower the car with H&Rs.
On a side note, they had a set of OEM #166s that had just come off an M5 with less than 500 miles. They were selling them for $2000 with the original Conti tires. Please email if you have an interest, and I will pass it on. The guys at the wheel place are great!

I have attached three photos with the new spacers. The last picture is the "before" photo (it is hard to see, but the before photo makes the wheel look really small). What does everyone think?

 

Why do they always move these posts to the "parts" place? These are "common knowledge" posts that may belong on the general board. Eh?

 

Nice. I'm sure this info is useful to a lot of people.

AND they look great. Are they lighter in color than OEM #166s? they seem lighter in color. more silver? Instead of like Shadow Chrome Silver...

 

Bad pics :thumbsdown: ..

 

Where did you get the sensors?

 

rims look great, picuture is over exposed

 

I think that the pictures are bad. It was about to rain. The replicas are more silver like crome.

 

Bad pics or bad result with the 20mm spacers?

 

Garry from Newport BMW. His contact information is listed on this "parts" site.
Total cost with shipping--$170.00.

Best,

 

Dude! Great wheels on your car! Let's have a meeting here with the miami people!