Tire Rotation is not recommended for X5
 

I read in the repair manual that tire rotations is not recommend for X5. I couldn't find anything on this forum about this topic. It looks like this is not what most people expect as I saw some posts mentioning they had done rotations. What you guys think?

On many X5s the tires are different sizes front to rear which would not be rotatable in the first place.

New tire technology and a correct alignment should allow the tires to wear pretty evenly anyways so I'm not sure it is necessary in BMWs eyes

I worked for a Stealership in Minnesota a few years back and the consensus is that the technology that BMW uses to align tires, and the weight distrubution of the car itself, counteracts any and all uneven wear of the tires. Although, if you are doing burnouts with an m5, a favorite of mine, your rear tires are clearly going to wear out fast then your fronts, Duh.

So no, as long as your tires looked normal, your good to go.

Wow. BMW thinks a lot of themselves if they think all 4 tires wear evenly. I rotate mine every 5-6k (free, thanks discount tire!). The front shoulders wear faster than the rear, for obvious reasons. Other than that, I don't see much point in rotating, but, rotating does help a set of tires last longer. Note that I'm non-sport, and do not have staggered tires.

For the OP, your search button must need rotating. I just did a search on 'tire rotation' and got 98 threads.

In my case, I have never rotated tires on my BMWs, as per BMW recommendations. On my X5, I had 70,000 km on the original tires when I sold it, and they were perfectly even.

BMW believes that any gains you get by getting more life out of your tires are offset against the reduction in handling that you will experience by running tires in different positions. Tires take a set in a certain position on a vehicle, and when you move them they take some time to wear in.

If you have uneven wear, it is worth looking at the cause (often toe in, or incorrect pressure) before compromising your handling by rotating tires.

From what I understood, tire rotation does little help to any BMW with x-Drive since the torque distribution to each wheel varies constantly depending on the road and driving condition. Therefore tire wearing should be pretty even. I had stagger set up on my previous X3, and the tire were between left and right was very even.

But for my 2002 E53 4.6, which is non-X-drive, constant 40% front and 60% rear torque distribution, staggered, lowered about about 1" and fitted with spacers.... had extremely uneven tire wear for the rear (inside wears MUCH faster than outside), while pretty even for the front. I had to rotate between Left / Right, and managed to go for 4 more months before I replaced all 4 tires.

So for my case, it was useful to rotate the tires.

:iagree:

I think that X-drive or non X-drive has very little to do with tire wear. The torque split differences are only front rear, not side to side.

On the other hand, running wide tires, staggered tires, using spacers, and lowering will all accelerate tire wear. Fast wear on the rear with wide tires is very often related to toe not being adjusted correctly.

I think that is because you searched all the forums and not just the X5 (E53) forum. Anyway, thanks for your reply.

Thank you for asking and all your answers. I was reading though the manual yesterday and thought I just overlooked the rotation part. I was told my the place I take my 'other European' (don't want to sound like a d$%^) car to that because of near even weight distribution, you don't need to rotate tires. I did notice after about 20000+ miles, the fronts began to cup a little. JCL, you are on the money! it was an alignment issue. I rotated tires, aligned all four corners and will not need to to it again till I change tires.