Jed Peter

Okay:

I'm either going to get 124s off a regular 550i Sport car, or a set of M5 wheels.

Can you tell me what spacers I'm going to need on the front and the back to run this staggered setup?

Any help at all would be fantastic!

I see TONS of posts about having these wheels, and that there will be a need for spacers and whatever, but no one says what size spacers will be needed.

Can anyone help?

C's Bimmer

Don't do it! It won't work. You need the xi model wheels. BMW makes OEM 124 wheels for our car in the proper offsets. Our offsets are ET43. Standard on a 550/530 is ET20. If you buy these wheels from a standard owner, you won't need spacers because your front wheels will stick out beyond the wells and it will look AWFUL! Check out: www.realoem.com. Do a search on your car and see which alloys are available. I would then buy them from Garry Romani of BMW of Newport (Rhode Island). He gives E60.net members a 25% discount on all OEM parts, which is by far, the cheapest I've found anywhere.

But whatever you do, do NOT buy 124's from a standard owner and definitely don't buy the M5 wheels for your car. It won't work, unless you look all your wheels sticking out way beyond their wells.

Better yet, here:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?mo...hg=36&fg=15

These are the 124's made just for your car. For some reason, they don't offer them in a staggered setup for the wagon (for the xi sedan they do).

These are the wheels for the standard 550.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?mo...hg=36&fg=15

NOTE the difference on the offsets. Ours is ET43. Standard is ET20. This is a MAJOR difference!

Jed Peter

You're the man.

Looks like I'm screwed on the offset then.

I wanted to go with those or the 172s...but they're like 1000k more for the set!

Thanks a ton!

Jed

blinkme_210

If you add any more spacers to the standard 124 wheels, you are effectively decreasing the offset. So if you add a 10mm spacer to the standard 124 wheels with ET 20, then the wheel offset would be "ET 10". This is not what you want to do, because xi E60/E61's have an offset of 43 like cmansbimmer said. You can decrease (lower) offset, but cannot increase (higher) offset with spacers.

Others put spacers on to "push" the wheels out so that they are flush with the fender. But the wheel hubs of the xi are already placed 23mm out further, greatly decreasing our wheel choices and fitments.

If you are going to put aftermarket rims on, try not to exceed 18x8J, ET35 for front wheels, and ET32/33 for rear wheels. Check out the link in my signature for more details.

blinkme_210

Since you are driving a E61, and Steve Dinan has your car in the shop for springs development, is he developing springs that will work with both E60 xi and E61 (Touring)? Because the E61 has the self leveling suspension, which would probably require different spring set ups; IE different coil tension and pitch. Would you be so kind and ask Steve Dinan if he's developing springs for the E60 or E61, or both.

Jed Peter

I don't deal with Steve--like others I deal with one of the sales guys they have in their office.

I believe that they will likely use the technology off the front suspension gained (ours is the same) and apply it to what they know about the e60 cars already to develop rear springs.