Annual State Inspection. Nothing worry about, right? WRONG!
 

Took my X5 to get my state inspection earlier this week thinking I had nothing to worry about. Everything works, no warning lights, tires look like new...

WRONG! :swear:

Service writer comes and sits down next to me in waiting area (this can't be good). Says I need new front pads and rotors as the pads are almost to the wear limit, but the rotors are worn and too thin to turn (ok, I pull my own wrenches, so not so bad). Then, he drops the bomb on me; My rear tires are shot. They're so worn that cord is starting to show through. He takes me out to the service bay and shows me. Sure enough, the inside edges of both rear tires are worn down to the belts. Rest of tires have almost new tread on them. Service writer says he's checked his distributors and my tires aren't available anymore. I have them put the car back together and I go home and start tire shopping. Sure enough, Michelin doesn't make my tires anymore, so I now have to buy four tires instead of just two. I'm literally sick to my stomach as all four tires are otherwise new looking. I had just talked with my wife that morning about starting to set money aside so that when the BMW needed new tires in a couple or three years, we'd be ready. That's what I get for talking about it! :swear:

At any rate, I ended up ordering Hankooks from Tire Rack. I wanted all season, and the choices are very limited (I have the sport package with 19" wheels).

I'm doing the brakes tomorrow and will have a good look at the rear suspension when I'm done with the brakes. I have an appointment on Monday to have the rear end looked and and an alignment done. Definitely don't want a replay of this anytime soon!

Any words of wisdom about the tire wear? I've done some reading and found everything from "all BMW's have that problem due to the extreme negative camber" to rear tire wear is caused by worn rear suspension ball joints.

Ballssss. I have to change out my tires in a few weeks too :( not looking forward to it

It's been said time and time again, it is NOT the negative camber that shreds the tires, its the negative camber in conjunction with the Toe setting on the rear that shreds them.

The popular wear items are the ball joint in the wheel carrier, as well as the wishbone control arm to get the camber back into spec. However, once your camber is back in spec, I highly recommend setting your Toe in the rear to .01, in order to save future sets of tires.

For what its worth I have almost 10k on my Toyo Proxes 20" staggered tires, with -1.9 in the rear left and -2.9 in the rear right on camber at my last alignment last year, have not touched the rear suspension yet. I had the shop set my toe to zero and haven't had an issue with irregular wear.

Go get an alignment immediately after you put the new tires on. Sounds like your camber and toe are off... pretty common on these cars.

Oh, and wow, VA really does some serious inspecting. Its now only emissions here in NJ

How many miles on the car?

What you need to do here is replace the rear balljoint, rear arm, and eccentric arm ( one that controls the toe bolt).

That basically covers the rear, when you go get an alignment get the camber dialed in as close to zero as possible and the toe zeroed out as well. It affects handling but i dont know if you push the ride or not.

Since my 4.8 is lowered so naturally i will have more camber cause of that and probably cause of the aggressive spacer setup i run as well, the closest i could get is about -2.6 degrees on both sides, and then i had the toe zeroed out.

Been on new rear tires since October and no abnormal wear. Car is driven hard as well.

I'm not so sure rear ball joints are absolutely needed, especially for a 2005 model, unless it is high mileage.

My X5 is an '03 with 115k miles. I would say that 75% of that was driving in the city, such as New York city and now Saint Louis. The roads are rough on the suspension. However, when I took it to my last alignment, the tech was able to get the camber back to spec at -1.7 deg. So my suggestion is to pay for that $90 alignment first before you start throwing money at it.

Thanks for all the replies. Car has 75k miles on it. I don't know when the rear suspension pieces typically require replacement. I found a video online about unloading the rear suspension to properly check for rear ballpoint wear, but don't know if that kind of wear is suspect at 75k miles.

Jack the car up so the wheel is off the ground.

Put a second jack under the air spring and jack it up a bit to take the pre load off the rear suspension.

You'd be surprised at what you'll find, it's not always the mileage that makes these suspension parts wear it's also the AGE of the parts, I have 72k and redid the whole front end last year, going to tackle the rear slowly this year.

If you note my post above there is at least one piece on my rear right that is worn bc my tech couldn't get my side closer than -2.9 degrees

I just have the base 17 inch wheels, running 235/65R17 Yokohama YK580s, but I have learned to keep cold tire pressures at the lower end of the inflation rating (unless I'm loaded up for a trip & towing). I run 32 psi at all four corners and have been pleased with the near even wear on the tires. If I'm running heavy, I'll take the fronts to 34 psi and the rear to 38 psi.

My rear camber was sitting at -1.5 and -1.7 degrees left/right on the last inspection.

2002 X5 3.0 252,000 miles
2004 325i 113,000 miles

Got a call from the shop this afternoon and the tech did not find anything worn in the suspension. They will put her on the alignment rack tomorrow and see what they find (they spent time today also chasing an oil leak). I'd like to stay with the stock alignment as long as it doesn't eat my tires. Any thoughts?