De-stagger

So I have the sport package. Currently running staggered tires. I really don't like the whole lack of rotation deal, and my car is mainly used for commuting and not high performance situations.

Is it a bad idea to go the same size all around? If not, what size is recommended?

I believe my wheels are style m68.

Thanks for the help
Chad

It's not a bad idea. Depending on how aggressively you drive it may change the car a bit. By design the staggered setup introduces understeer. Go to a squared setup (non-staggered) and you reduce the tendency to understeer so the car will become more neutral when cornering. If you don't drive aggressively you probably won't notice it and you'll be able to rotate your tires.

You should be able to get another set of M68's fairly inexpensively and mount the rears in both the front and the back running a 245/40/17 all season tire. The rim would be 8.5" wide and with a 50 offset would extend the rim into the wheel well an addition 21.7mm over the stock M68 7.5" front. As long as your running stock suspension you won't run into clearance issues with the struts.

BMW does not recommend rotating wheels (regardless of the setup being staggered or not). This is explicitly stated in the user's manual.

Originally Posted by vadim

BMW does not recommend rotating wheels (regardless of the setup being staggered or not). This is explicitly stated in the user's manual.

I've never understood this. I can't think of a good reason not to rotate tires.

Originally Posted by vadim

BMW does not recommend rotating wheels (regardless of the setup being staggered or not). This is explicitly stated in the user's manual.

Makes zero sense to me either when running a square setup. Staggered yes since that would have major impacts to handling when they get mixed up. Since most (all?) come staggered OEM of course the manual would advise against the typically common practice.

I went square with my E60 after the first set of tires. As far as I can tell, the handling hasn't changed, and I'm spending 25% less on rubber. My girlfriend doesn't want to do it on the E46, but her reasons are cosmetic.

Are you people running non-directional tires? That's the only place I could see you saving money by rotating. Rotating on our cars saves us from crazy camber wear, which happens on the inside of the rears and fronts, so the only way to combat it is to either run non-directional tires or have the tires demounted and remounted halfway through their life which is going to cost you more to do than to just leave them and replace it earlier.
I have all directional, so I don't even rotate. When the rears wear out on my E46, I replace them. When the staggered rears wear out on my Z4, I replace them. When the fronts wear out on either, I replace them. Easier to stomach $300-400 twice a year than $600-800 once a year per car. (yes, I run high performance tires, drive the **** out of my cars, and drive 35-40k miles a year)

I think most people go with a square setup. I like my staggered look, though

Originally Posted by jneumann

Are you people running non-directional tires?

Directional tires or not, you don't want to go switching direction. When I "rotate", fronts go to rear and rears go to front. Left stays on left, and right stays on right.

Before I went square, I was getting 20k out of the rears, and 35k to 40k on the fronts before the noise got too bad. Now I'm getting 40k on all of them. That's where my rubber $$$ savings comes from. They actually wear out before the noise gets bad.

Edit: I spend $0.03 per mile on tires; my girlfriend (staggered) spends $0.045.

Staggered setup is not for performance reasons on BMWs, OP. By "squaring" or equalizing all wheels/tires, you are actually doing a performance upgrade (that's a good thing).

Obviously, WDE, the reason why BMW doesn't recommend rotating tires is because its cars usually feature staggered setups. For non-staggered setups, because BMW alignments usually feature lots of rear camber + toe-in. This develops a unique and aggressive wear pattern and rate which would typically be unfit for usage on the front axle (steering input) so as a result, it's typically better to not rotate on a BMW. This is how I understand it anyway.

Originally Posted by E46Mango

Staggered setup is not for performance reasons on BMWs, OP. By "squaring" or equalizing all wheels/tires, you are actually doing a performance upgrade (that's a good thing).

Obviously, WDE, the reason why BMW doesn't recommend rotating tires is because its cars usually feature staggered setups. For non-staggered setups, because BMW alignments usually feature lots of rear camber + toe-in. This develops a unique and aggressive wear pattern and rate which would typically be unfit for usage on the front axle (steering input) so as a result, it's typically better to not rotate on a BMW. This is how I understand it anyway.

I see you're also going with the green tire mod. Have you noticed any gains? performance or otherwise?

Originally Posted by NOVAbimmer

I see you're also going with the green tire mod. Have you noticed any gains? performance or otherwise?

Well originally I went with it because DMAX told me it's popular with the ladies. I drove by a couple of clubs and no response.

But now that you mention it, my car does feel "lighter" on its feet so I've decided to keep the mod. I'm going to go to Costco and have them give me matching valve stem caps.

This is how I looked when I pulled up to the club:

Originally Posted by Wolrab

Directional tires or not, you don't want to go switching direction. When I "rotate", fronts go to rear and rears go to front. Left stays on left, and right stays on right.

Before I went square, I was getting 20k out of the rears, and 35k to 40k on the fronts before the noise got too bad. Now I'm getting 40k on all of them. That's where my rubber $$$ savings comes from. They actually wear out before the noise gets bad.

Edit: I spend $0.03 per mile on tires; my girlfriend (staggered) spends $0.045.

Unless you changed tire categories, or drastically modified your driving style, that doesn't seem physically possible. Either that, or you were tossing your tires before they were worn out.

Mango,

You need to get those tires Fern Green Metallic if you want the ladies.

You're welcome!