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Originally Posted by dradernh

I agree with this.

I think our cars have much more flexibility in wheel and tire setup that many owners realize. We enthusiasts tend to focus on nominal tread width, but I think many 2-series owners would enjoy their cars more if they ran the taller tire sidewalls available after switching to 17" wheels.

I run 35-series tires on 18" wheels in the summer with the full understanding that I'm going to feel everything over which the tires roll, and that I chose those tires because that is the effect I was looking for.

FWIW, I too have a set of OEM dampers available, with only 1,972 miles on them.

Yes and no. Definitely some flexibility if you stay stock width but our fitment is so finicky when you want any more because of our weirdly deep offsets/small wheel wells. That reduces wheel options to just a few brands/models. In the rear I have literally 2mm space on both inner and outer clearance with -1.9 degrees camber lowered on just 265s. No rub- but if I have x2 rear passengers my left high sidewall gets polished. Living on the edge.

And it should also be noted that an 18 inch wheel in the world of luxury-performance cars is relatively small as well. 19/20/21 is common. Porsches and Hellcats are great examples of this, those wheels are just huge.

Considering those larger diameter rims often have the same aspect ratio as our smaller setups, but with wider tires, this means that they also have more sidewall depth at the same time too. So those 20 inch 295 width 35 aspect tires not only roll over bumps much more nicely (because their overall rolling circumference is greater/the wheel doesn't "fit" into the bump it flows over), it ALSO has more rubber cushioning the blow. With better traction and less sidewall flex because of the overall carcass stability. Our little squeezed in setups don't have these luxuries. We fight for our traction and to keep our teeth in our skulls, at the same time.