[Artovs]

BMW put on three 245/35/18 PSS tires and one 225/40/28 at the factory!!

So... I got a bubble in my front right tire last week. I'm not too mad about it because I've gotten 20k miles from these MPSS's and even though they can probably take another 3/4k, I like fresh rubber.

When I double checked that I ordered the right tires from tirerack (at my local tire shop), I noticed that my front left was 225/40/18, BUT my front right was 245/35/18!!! The rears were 245's too so it's not like somebody rotated them. It's 100% three 245's and one 225.

The tires are being changed now and I'm having them measure the wheel's to make sure they are both 7.5". Keeping old tires and going to the dealership immediately after.

Any suggestions? Pics attached


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[amw896]

is your car x drive? Pretty sure a mistake like this could do ridiculous amounts of damage to your transfer case and viscous coupling.

[Artovs]

Originally Posted by amw896

is your car x drive? Pretty sure a mistake like this could do ridiculous amounts of damage to your transfer case and viscous coupling.

It is not XDrive. RWD. It's supposed to have a staggered setup. 245's in rear and 225's in front.

[idc]

No offense, but the hilarious thing to me is that it took you 20k mile to discover it
If not for me swapping for winter tires I doubt I would have noticed either, especially with the "wrong" tire on the passenger side.

Take advantage of it, ask BMW to give you a free front 225 replacement.

[BEM-S4]

Yeah this is firmly in the land of go straight to dealer have them deal with it. Involving a third party is just unnecessarily complicating matters in terms of you getting a free tire.

Hell you could have an incorrect wheel too.

[jpnh]

Originally Posted by Artovs

It is not XDrive. RWD. It's supposed to have a staggered setup. 245's in rear and 225's in front.

While a noteworthy "oops" on the part of BMW its a complete and total non event from a mechanical perspective, PARTICLULARLY since its the wheels in question are non drive wheels

The circumference difference between the two is 1.3%........I would expect the dealer/bmw to apologize profusely, offer to replace BOTH of your front tires with correct sizes at no cost to you and then go forward with life

No damage done

[Artovs]

I'm waiting to hear back from the Service Manager at my dealership. They were very non-committal when I came by on Friday.

They are going to go through the process of checking other dealerships that performed service on my car over it's life to make sure they didn't change the tires. Then will attempt to submit a claim with BMW NA. If that doesn't work, they will offer me something from their end. He said BMW NA may not do anything because the tires have "lived their life", which I think is a pretty weak argument.

My thinking is aligned with your's, Jpnh. I think the right thing for them to do would be to reimburse me for the two front tires I bought. I'll update once I hear back.

[ralawren]

I had a similar situation but it was only a few weeks and less than 2000 miles. The car came new with 245's on the front 7.5" wheels. When I went back to the dealer it took almost a month and BMW NA denied the claim. The issue was the car had been exchanged with another dealer so they could not assure BMW that the other dealer hadn't swapped them out.

The dealer did take care of me. We worked out a deal where I purchased the used 245's for $200 and they installed new 225's on the front.

Good luck with your issue!

[Artovs]

Originally Posted by ralawren

I had a similar situation...

The dealer did take care of me. We worked out a deal where I purchased the used 245's for $200 and they installed new 225's on the front.

Good luck with your issue!

Thank's for the input. I saw your thread when originally researching new tires. I also bought my car new in August 2015... Maybe this is a wider spread problem? Do you know anyone else that had the a similar issue?

[ralawren]

You are the only other person I am aware of that had the issue. My car was built in March 2015 and sat on the lot in Kingsport,TN until I had my local dealer make an exchange and ship it here to NC.

[XutvJet]

This is interesting. So a 245/35R18 will fit on the 7.5" rims and not have clearance issues with the front struts. Wow. I tried fitting the stock rear 18X8 ET53 rims with the 245/35 tires and they couldn't be mounted because the tire was flat up against the strut. I've got a set of 18X8 ET43 rims (all four corners) I'll mounting with the staggered tire setup. I test fitted a rim (no tire on it) and there was 10mm of clearance between the wheel lip and strut. This amount of clearance and this thread give me hope that I could run a 245/35R18 square set up which would be ideal and would reduce understeer.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

This is interesting. So a 245/35R18 will fit on the 7.5" rims and not have clearance issues with the front struts. Wow. I tried fitting the stock rear 18X8 ET53 rims with the 245/35 tires and they couldn't be mounted because the tire was flat up against the strut. I've got a set of 18X8 ET43 rims (all four corners) I'll mounting with the staggered tire setup. I test fitted a rim (no tire on it) and there was 10mm of clearance between the wheel lip and strut. This amount of clearance and this thread give me hope that I could run a 245/35R18 square set up which would be ideal and would reduce understeer.

Yeah, this is what piqued my interest first, too. a 245/35 on a 7.5-inch rim would have some major sidewall angling going on. I would check to make sure that rim is not an 8" rim, OP -- IOW, your car has three 8" rims and one 7.5" one. I can very easily see someone at Leipzig popping an 8" rim on the front axle by mistake -- but not putting a 245/35 on a 7.5-inch rim.

In that 20k of driving, did you ever notice the 245/35 side pulling the car it's way? Seems to me that a roughly 8 percent contact patch difference would have that effect ... Also seems to me that the wider side would wear slightly faster because it would take more of the traction load because of that bigger contact patch (that's a small reason that, generally, the rear tires wear 30-40 percent faster than the fronts on a staggered-setup car-- larger contact patch relative to the fronts).

I would also have your alignment checked. 20k miles on mismatched tires -- not only by width and rolling diameter, but by weight and traction load -- may throw things out of whack. Have your brake pads checked, too; I guarantee that the wider side is worn more than the skinnier side.

[XutvJet]

It's got to be a 7.5" rim because the OEM 245/35R18 and OEM 18X8 ET53 won't clear the front struts. Based on this website (http://www.willtheyfit.com):

1) The OEM 245/35R18 on the OEM 18X8 ET53 rim would sit 14.4MM closer to the strut than the OEM 225/40R18 on the OEM 18X7.5 ET45 rim.

2) The OEM 245/35R18 on an OEM 18X7.5 ET45 rim would be exactly the same distance from the strut as the OEM 225/40R18 on an OEM 18X7.5 ET45 rim.

I'm pumped about this possible option to run 245/35s up front and do a square setup.

Sorry about your misfortune OP!

[varkdriver]

I just picked up a pair of OEM new-takeoff rears (18X8" ET52) and plan to use them on the front with 10 or 12mm spacers. That will result in an effective offset of 42mm. Playing with "WillTheyFit" it appears that this should work fine with stock or lowered suspension. Then I will fit matching PSS for a square, 245/35/18 setup. My M240i is mid-Atlantic and should land in Galveston TX on 19 Feb. I am stoked, to say the least. I will be in for about $800 for rims and tires and can keep my stock fronts for posterity or emergency spare use as I see fit. Had staggered on my 335i for 10 years and got tired of wasting good rubber because I couldn't rotate. I wasted a bunch of $$ over several sets of tires.

[pz619]

Wow. Definitely crazy it came from the factory like that. Let us know how this works out.

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

This is interesting. So a 245/35R18 will fit on the 7.5" rims and not have clearance issues with the front struts. Wow. I tried fitting the stock rear 18X8 ET53 rims with the 245/35 tires and they couldn't be mounted because the tire was flat up against the strut. I've got a set of 18X8 ET43 rims (all four corners) I'll mounting with the staggered tire setup. I test fitted a rim (no tire on it) and there was 10mm of clearance between the wheel lip and strut. This amount of clearance and this thread give me hope that I could run a 245/35R18 square set up which would be ideal and would reduce understeer.

widest recommended on 7.5" for PSS is 225...

[ralawren]

You just need to pull the front wheel off and look on the back for the diameter and width. The wheel manufacturer stamps it on. Mine are 18x7.5. The 245's fit in them fine without rubbing. However, Michelin and TireRack both confirmed it was not a safe setup. Under extreme side forces the bead could break off. Since I AutoX and do Driver Schools this risk was unacceptable. For normal conditions you may be okay.....

[Artovs]

Update -

My dealership is going to pay two front tires. I had to push and escalate this up to the GM, but they came around eventually.

The front wheels are both correct and the same size (7.5"). I made sure they checked them when I was replacing the tires. So... all signs point to the factory putting the wrong size tire on the right size wheel.

I can't believe I never noticed anything... I've done 2 track days too... Counter clockwise tracks so I guess if anything the weird setup made left turns better. Haha.

I agree it is probably a dangerous setup and don't recommend anyone run 245's on a 7.5" rim. This is probably why the larger front tire eventually got a bubble. I hit a nasty pothole though so didn't think anything of it until I realized the larger size.

Luckily nothing bad happened net net, but it probably could have, so check your tires ya'll! BMW can't be trusted.

[AlpsRider]

Originally Posted by Artovs

Update -

My dealership is going to pay two front tires. I had to push and escalate this up to the GM, but they came around eventually.

The front wheels are both correct and the same size (7.5"). I made sure they checked them when I was replacing the tires. So... all signs point to the factory putting the wrong size tire on the right size wheel.

I can't believe I never noticed anything... I've done 2 track days too... Counter clockwise tracks so I guess if anything the weird setup made left turns better. Haha.

I agree it is probably a dangerous setup and don't recommend anyone run 245's on a 7.5" rim. This is probably why the larger front tire eventually got a bubble. I hit a nasty pothole though so didn't think anything of it until I realized the larger size.

Luckily nothing bad happened net net, but it probably could have, so check your tires ya'll! BMW can't be trusted.

That is great that you got 2 tires out of BMW. If you stop and think about it, this is a serious safety failure. If you had been in a panic stop accident and the tires had been found to be different sizes from the factory, they would be giving you a lot more than 2 tires! They should have been kissing your shoes!

[x233]

Serious safety failure. One thing worse would be letting you out of their parking lot with that wheel unbolted. The fact they make a poker face about it and pretend they do you a favor by giving away 2 front wheels is an ultimate hypocrisy. Had this discovery been made in association with a car accident, e.g., as a result of the car unable to stop properly under some circumstances, say, on a slippery patch of road, or other handling fault, they would pay oh so dearly. They could have been sued till they bleed dry. And they know it.

[Benandluna]

Funny story. Glad you had no safety issues and they took care of you.

[Artovs]

Originally Posted by x233

Serious safety failure. One thing worse would be letting you out of their parking lot with that wheel unbolted. The fact they make a poker face about it and pretend they do you a favor by giving away 2 front wheels is an ultimate hypocrisy.

That is great that you got 2 tires out of BMW. If you stop and think about it, this is a serious safety failure. If you had been in a panic stop accident and the tires had been found to be different sizes from the factory, they would be giving you a lot more than 2 tires! They should have been kissing your shoes!

100% agree with you. I'm lucky I didn't have a blowout or the tire come off the bead at the track braking hard from 120mph for a corner. I'm having them do alignment and check my brakes as well for good measure. I feel thats the least they can do.