So.. she's under the knife (sorta)

[admranger]

I hate to add to your repair bills, but your tires are aged out. Replace them. 7 years is the max I'd run tires.

My Michelin winter tires were cracked like crazy after 6 years. I only had them for 3 or so years, so I can't say how they were treated before I got them, but after they were in bags in my garage (no ozone producing devices in the garage). Even when the wheels are on the X5, it is garaged at work and at home. So very limited sun exposure in the grand scheme of things (I drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark…).

Regardless, check your tires. 9 years old for tires is old.

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by admranger

I hate to add to your repair bills, but your tires are aged out. Replace them. 7 years is the max I'd run tires.

Regardless, check your tires. 9 years old for tires is old.

This is a heckuva thread bump. I wrote this almost a year and a half ago!

As for the old tires:

I bought the X5 from a BMW dealer in Iowa who changed the old tires before I bought it. They had some sort of legal reason for not selling a car with old tires. And I don't care. It was basically $1500 off the price as far as I was concerned. They were brand new when I picked it up and they lasted for awhile.

When they ran through late last year, I switched to some Michelins from my previous X5. I had them laying around so I decided to put off buying new ones. They lasted until just this past month- and might have for longer if I weren't headed on a 2,000 mile end of year trip.

I bought new Michelins a couple weeks ago and they're set for mounting on Monday. For the record, I'm at 44k now. That's 3 big road trips over the last year and day to day driving... I don't remember when I filled up last.

I expect to finish this year's road trip and head into my 3rd year of ownership with a clean 50k miles come Feb, 2014. That'll be about 13k a year. Not so bad. Time for that next transmission service!