Jimvon

Hi everyone, I have a 2005 530i. I saw a set of 21 inch BMW OEM style 128 wheels on Craigslist for sale and I took an interest in them. Before I bought them, I raided many different forums and confirmed that they could fit on my car. I also have several photos of those wheels on 5 Series E60s. After buying the wheels, they are not fitting on the car. I have 245/35/21 in the front and 285/30/21 in the rear. I cant even get the wheels onto the car. The circle in the center seems to be too small on the wheels. Also, the rear wheel is too wide and it's rubbing against the inner fender of the car. Does anyone know what needs to be done to make these wheels fit? Everyone made it seem like they just fit perfectly with no modifications. I bought the exact same Tire setup as one of the members and his fit just fine but mine is not fitting. Can someone help me please?
I have attached a photo of a member's E60 with the same setup. His fits but mine does not. Please help!

JayArras

If these are OEM 128's, then the specs are probably all off for your car sorry to say. If you look at this site BMW wheel style 128 | BmwStyleWheels.com you'll see the offsets are too big for an "i" E60, which should be in the teens to 20's range. You probably have X5/X6 wheels. I'd say put them back up for sale and move on.

Jimvon

Hey thanks for the reply. The guy did say that they came off an X5. I assumed that they would fit regardless. So am I completely screwed here?

JayArras

As far as being able to use them, yes. They're a popular style so you should be able to resell them, although there's less demand for the 21s.

Chalk it up to a lesson learned. We've all been there.

Misterbish

You will need wheel spacers front and rear approx 25mm to 30mm wide, this will push the wheels out enough to clear inner arches and suspension, but then you might find the tyres rubbing on the arches to you will have to fit thinner tyres and have them stretched

Jimvon

Thanks man! Should I put the same millimeters for front and back or do 15mm in the front and 25mm in the rear? I havent seen any 30mm spacers.

Misterbish

It all depends on how flush you want the wheel rim to be with the arch, normally rears need a bigger spacer to sit flush.

I'm running aftermarket 19" rims on my E60 and have 18mm front and 30mm rear spacers to achieve the stance i wanted. Its all down to personnel preference and taste.

With my OEM 18" rims i was running 12mm front and 20mm rear spacers to fill the arches.

Here in the uk you can get 30mm or even 35mm spacers everywhere. have a look at Ebay.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/253570291...m=253570291431

Just make sure you get hub centric if i remember correctly its 72.6 for the E60

Jimvon

Okay thanks man. I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this so that I don't buy the wrong thing. How would I know what mm will make it sit flush and how will I know about filling the arches?

Misterbish

Well its all trial and error when trying to fit non model specific rims to a different car, i brought 3 different sizes of spacers before i settled on 30mm. I started with 35mm and they rubbed too much, dropped down to 25mm but didn't like the stance and finally settled on 30mm. you can always sell the spacers on after.

Its going to be more important to get the tyre size correct first then space out after. Just buy a pair of 20mm spacers as a start point and work from there.

Im afraid its going to be trial and error and maybe some blood sweat and tears(and a lot of swearing) along the way but that's the price you have to pay if you to be different and stand out from the crowd.

Jimvon

I appreciate it bro. Should I start at 20mm and go up from there or start at 30mm and go down? Also will I need spacers for the front? I did not try to put on the front wheel yet. Only tried the rear.