autoque:
I'm certainly no expert on this (I think some of the guys on the forum are/were actually BMW Techs, so they'll be able to answer more authoritatively), but the "recommended" settings seem to be +/- tolerances from a "target".

If you check that other thread referenced above a couple of people have posted their alignment reports -- there you will see their "before/after measurements", the "target data", and the "Max difference" (which I'm assuming is the tolerance that BMW says is "ok").

It looks like the target toe for both front and rear .05' (per wheel - .10' total), but that a bit less (i.e. .02 - .04) on the front helps with the outer edge cupping.

From what I'm hearing, you pretty much have to demand that the car is set-up as close as possible to the target, because the tolerances are quite wide.

I'm going to get an alignment next week sometime, and I'm not experiencing uneven rear tire wear, so I will post my alignment report when I get it so you can see how my car is/was setup.

Note however that I suspect I may have a thrust-angle issue due to my wife bumping curbs with the rear tires... i.e. she's not used to the wide rear tires on the 50i sport compared with our old 1st gen 3.0i...


ard:
Thanks for you suggestions -- I would love to go elsewhere for an alignment, but I'm not sure where. I've had nothing but on-warranty BMWs for quite a while, so I always just use the dealer for service (never had an alignment though) and don't know of a good alignment shop (or even a mechanic) that I trust to work on the car.

Not sure if anyone out there is in South Florida (West Palm Beach area), but if anyone knows a good place other than the dealer(s) to do this I'm all ears...