PSA: forget tire rotations!
 

EDITED, please forget tire rotations on BMW's because they actually do not recommend them, and there have been reports of compromised high speed stability...so please disregard below.

Dont forget your tire rotations, guys!

I put off my tire rotations and recently started to hear a slight thumping on slowing down.

Visual inspection showed a bit of heel/toe wear developing on the inner rears.

I have the 19" staggered sports package on my truck so I couldnt do a standard rotation.

I have OEM non-directional Turanzas so I crossed my fingers, and had the rear tires dismounted, flipped over, and balanced. *Luckily, it eliminated the thumping. *

Whew!

What is heel/toe wear? The only "Heel & Toe" that I know of is a technique used driving a manual.

Are you sure it's safe to "flip" over and remount your tires? Even though, your tires may be non-directional, most tires still have an "outside" edge. If your car is aligned correctly, there shouldn't be any excessive inner edge wear. I also run staggered 19 on my little 3.0i with pretty even tire wear.

I have never rotated tires on my last five BMWs (which is what BMW recommends). It was better not to. I got 75,000 km + on the X5, and around the same on the X3, without rotating and with resulting even wear across the tread at the end of life. The X3 tires would have gone another 15,000 km but I had to make a winter trip and decided not to buy snows, so I wanted new all seasons. Never had the hassle of rotating them, and never had the reduced performance that comes from rotating tires when they have taken a set in one direction.

If your alignment is out, or your tires are oversized, you may want to rotate them to get that last bit of wear out, accepting the reduced performance. It is much better, in my mind, to use reasonably sized tires and to check for even wear regularly, so that you don't have to rotate.

mine are staggered 20", directional... no rotation here...

Dkl, here ya go:

http://http://www.popularmechanics.c...-car-9#slide-9

JCL, I dont doubt reduced performance but I figure even reduced, the 255's and 285's are probably more than a match for an M54-powered X :) So doing that for a bit more life out of expensive 19 inchers seemed reasonable in this case for me.

TX5, well, you do have one (both!) of the fast movers, I'd probably be more accepting of the no-rotation situation in your case :)

No! BMW say not to rotate. I did once on my e46 and it was terrible. Once again if you can't afford the car you shouldn't own the car.

Gotcha. Will be putting the truck up for sale now. :rolleyes:

It's like the people who put 87 in their tank or go to a jiffy lube for oil changes.

What's wrong with 87 and jiffy lube? Gas is gas and oil is oil right?? :nanana:

I mean I agree all oil is exactly the same which is why I buy mine at big lots, but gas??? :)

By the way jgold, I noticed you did a rotation on the E46 and it's sold now. Is it because they told you you couldn't afford the car and shouldn't own it too?

Welcome to the club! Or are you welcoming me to your club? :rofl:

Haha I sold it to buy this hunk of junk. I thought the e46 was going to shake apart after I rotated. I put them back after about a day. It's a bad idea, but if it works for you, vaya con dios.

Well yeah, oil is oil but the internet told me I should use LL01 on the truck, so that's what I go for actually. :)

Back on topic, I only learned now that BMW doesnt recommend rotation. And looking into it a bit more it seems there can be some weird high speed behavior on some cars with rotated tires. I will definitely be on the lookout for this and just get new tires if there is any doubt.

Now I'm off to edit the thread title, brb :)