Tire shaving to fight premature camber wear?

[Fraser]

Originally Posted by omodos

Ta for your help......reckon i will need different bolts too, but let me find the alloys first then i can worry about that, realoem site show other styles that look good too......in 17"

Bolts will be the same for any OEM BMW wheel.

[LorraineS]

Originally Posted by Repoman

For the most part we as X owners are plagued by premature wearing of the rear tires on the inside. I was tooling around on the net and read about tire shaving. It mentioned that tires can be shaved to fit a particular camber setting for longer wear. Idea is that the tire is always riding on the entire tread instead of more weight focused on the inner edge.

Anyone heard of or have any experience with this? I just got a new set of cheap tires for the rears so I might consider as this set is as good any to experiment with.

IMHO, do not try this as my brother tried it on his x3 and few weeks later had to give it in for service repairs. From what I heard, this has to be done only on cars that have a very good pickup (better than the X)

[rph74]

The insides of the tires will wear out faster when aligned to spec. My 540 also does the same thing. The negative camber is what gives BMW's better handling.

The only solution that I can think of while still maintaining the excellent handling is to periodically take the tires to a tire shop to have the tires flipped--moving passenger's side tire to driver's side and vice versa. I was told it would be $17 to have it done. That's a small price to pay to get 15,000 + extra miles out of your rears!

[JCL]

Originally Posted by rph74

The insides of the tires will wear out faster when aligned to spec. My 540 also does the same thing. The negative camber is what gives BMW's better handling.

The only solution that I can think of while still maintaining the excellent handling is to periodically take the tires to a tire shop to have the tires flipped--moving passenger's side tire to driver's side and vice versa. I was told it would be $17 to have it done. That's a small price to pay to get 15,000 + extra miles out of your rears!

The problem with that theory is that many people have experienced regular and even tire wear with the stock camber settings. Yes, camber helps handling but it doesn't necessarily wear out tires faster. Toe settings are much more likely to be the cause. See the many references in the posts above.

[rph74]

Originally Posted by JCL

The problem with that theory is that many people have experienced regular and even tire wear with the stock camber settings. Yes, camber helps handling but it doesn't necessarily wear out tires faster. Toe settings are much more likely to be the cause. See the many references in the posts above.

Very interesting info. Well, I just had the alignment done at my local BMW dealer, so hopefully I will have even wear on the X5 now. If it works, than I will have the 540 done also.

[PMPNX5]

Warning for crappy iPhone pics. Lol.
Looks like I'm going in for an alignment.

[PMPNX5]

Other side.

[omodos]

Originally Posted by PMPNX5

Other side.

hi there got the same tires as you diamaris and similar wear did you ask at alignment garage if you could get them flipped?so inner worn edge is on outside?

[PMPNX5]

Originally Posted by omodos

hi there got the same tires as you diamaris and similar wear did you ask at alignment garage if you could get them flipped?so inner worn edge is on outside?

I asked the tech at the stealership and he said that he didn't see why you wouldn't be able to do it, but since I had cords showing on one side, it was clearly too late in the game for that and had to get new. Maybe this time around I'll be a little more observant and when it gets low I'll look further into the reversal....

[omodos]

ah thanks fro reply, well i flipped my tires with rims round at the rear on the same axle, no issues with noise, maybe wet handling will change but it doesnt rain here often alas, as for flipping the same tire round on the same rim wheel guy said it is fine....