Tire Rotation is not recommended for X5

[PeteHubs]

well i also have a 1991 Eclipse GSX track car. if you put different size tires (more then 2/32's different) you can potentially heat up your differential and transaxle enough where the compenents will break. I've got Nitto's in the front and Kumho's in the rear, and that is supposidely a bad idea

[PeteHubs]

although I am more worried about replacing the motor then any differential.

[cn90]

My 2006 X5 M54 6spMT...bought it in 2014 with 112K miles.
It is now 139K miles...

Tires are the same size front and rear.
Tread wear is 50% (about 6/32" depth).

As ppl said above...
- FRONT Tires have more wear on the Outer shoulder.
- REAR Tires a bit more wear on the Inner shoulder.

I understand this thread is from 11 yrs ago (2010), but just want to hear the "latest consensus" vs "latest debate"...

[X5chemist]

Front - outer wear due to cornering and steering.
Rear - BMW engineered less than 2 degrees angle wears out the inside.
Solution - rotate tires.

Mine had some wear after 10k miles the previous owner put on new tires. Fronts had outer wear. The torque arms were in bad shaped. Replaced the ball joints too. The rear were relatively flat and slight inner wear. The rear had more tread wear. The Xdrive gear was toast. I assume the fronts were not pulling. After gear replacement and maintenance, and rotation, tires look good. All of them will be replaced within the next 5k miles.

[Clavurion]

Here in Finland we use about 6 months summer tires and 6 months winter tires. So tires are removed anyways. Now 5 years and 50k km with same Michelin summer tires and I can't see any difference between front/rear inner/outer wear. I have marked the tires but basically just put the ones with more thread on the rear (side always the same).

[wpoll]

After a total ownership of 80,000kms on my X5, I don't see any difference in wear front to back. I put four new tyres on about 30,000kms ago - no visible difference in wear so far and no rotation. All four tyres have dead-even wear across entire tread.

255/55-18 FWIW...

[Bdc101]

Originally Posted by Clavurion

Here in Finland we use about 6 months summer tires and 6 months winter tires. So tires are removed anyways. Now 5 years and 50k km with same Michelin summer tires and I can't see any difference between front/rear inner/outer wear. I have marked the tires but basically just put the ones with more thread on the rear (side always the same).

Same here, I have always used a piece of masking tape to mark which corner I took each tire off of, and when I reinstall them 6 months later I just make sure to put the tires with the most tread on the corners that get the least wear.

For my family cars (all FWD, which I have been using studless winter tires on for ten years now) the fronts always wear more than the backs, and the driver's side front is the worst. I used to keep logs of my tire wear until I realized that they always wear in the exact same manner.

On all of the RWD cars I have owned, the rears wear much faster than the fronts. When I used to do a lot of autocross, the ability to use square tires and rotate was immeasurably valuable as I would sometimes see 3x the tire wear on the rear tires. I would have had to replace the rears every season but keep the fronts for 4-5 years.
For my X5, I am surprised at how even the tires wear. I have over 21k miles on my "summer" set of tires and I can't see a difference by eye. I will need to measure the wear with a caliper in a few weeks when I put the snows back on. (I have only had winter tires for 1 year on this car unfortunately, so I have a lack of data). It's surprising to me that it is so consistent, much more than other cars I've owned.

I am on stock 17" wheels with 237/65/17 tires FWIW.

[bcredliner]

Rotating tires has always been to even out tread wear. It was not to compensate for inside or outside wear due to whatever reason. If done correctly, after the tires were rotated the alignment was checked and corrected if necessary as was balancing. Rotation was diagonal front to rear. Left front to right rear as an example, an X pattern. This was for tires that are all the same size and non directional.

All that can be done on BMWs that have a staggered setup and/or directional tires is move them from right side to left side. If you change the tires to the rim on the other side it does nothing. The same side of the tire will be on the inside because they are directional. If there is uneven wear then it it time to check alignment, suspension wear and balancing.

I have owned my 4.6 since new. I drive hard and it is quite modded. Tires are staggered and directional so tires it serves no purposed to change them side to side. I have it aligned for best handling. I have consistently gone through 2 sets of rears to 1 set of fronts. They have never worn evenly though the fronts don't wear the inside of the tire as fast as the rears. If you have it aligned to minimize inside tire wear the handling is compromised but you can do that.

Mine is lowered and the suspension is modified. It has not changed tire wear.