7k miles and tires are Shot!
 

2011 35D loaded with almost 7k miles on the car, 214, 20"wheels with run-flats, completely stock. The car just turned one year old and has been driven like Ms. Daisy was in back.

4k of the miles are freeway and 2500+/-k are local highway, quite literally there might be 200 of city miles, but that's it. Both front tires area at their wear limiters. I, just, had a flat in the front drivers side, which was covered by the BMW wheel/tire warranty I purchased. The language is fuzzy on the contract and says there must be 2/32" of usable tread. So, I suppose they consider tread beyond the wear limiters to be usable tread.

I expected to get around 12k to 15k miles at least, not 7k. To me, that seems ridiculous. There's no abnormal wear on the tires whatsoever, I check pressures weekly, no spirited driving, towing, or other type of behavior that would cause the tires to wear so quickly.

Not a happy guy with a $1,700 tire bill next month (including tax). The alignment is fine and spot on. Any thoughts? These are the runflats, and the vehicle is completely stock. Havent's called BMW yet, but with 7k miles on it, I'm thinking about doing so. That seems a bit absurd...If I was "railing" on the SAV, sure. But, cruising at 80 on brand new highways 1-10 & I-5, makes me wonder why the hell these tires are completely shot.

Argh.. Also rear camera also went out (there's a new shielded cable for 2011/2012 models that prevents electrical interference from the exhaust system, apparently, sounds odd but the cable is on order, FYI), the lane departure system suffered a failure while driving on the freeway, complete with polite warning text informing me of such a malfunction (working on this), and the "alarm arm/disarm chirp/horn is only working 50% of the time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If everyone is getting 7k miles, okay, I'll take it. But, I clearly recall reading people achieving far higher mileage (about double).

Am I wrong?

Not sure why they would wear that quick either. I've got the same 20"s with the Dunlop Sport Maxx RFTs--have about 10K miles on them and about 60% tread left hoping to get close to 20K miles on them. It's worth you calling BMWUSA I would think.

Are they bridestones?

Saying the alignment is 'fine' or 'spot on' would seem to me to indicate the assumption that an alignment is good or bad...

Truth is a BMW can meet the BMW specs, 'spot on', and have HUGE toe numbers and give you 7000 miles. The BMW dealer will swear 'the alignment is fine'...

So what ARE you alignment numbers?

BMW allows 0.08 toe with 0.16 cross toe.. This will give 5k mikes. They also allow toe of 0.01, and cross toe of 0.02.... And get 25k.

My experience is about the same with 214s... Have about 12K miles or 70/30 hwy driving, quite spirited once in a while, mixed concrete/asphalt surfaces - you get an idea, this is NJ after all! Thread is down to 5.75/32 on fronts and 7.5/32 on rears, way much to go...

Do you live in hotter climate and use mostly concrete surface roads?

No hot weather driving, I bought the car in the end of July in 2010, and then after a careful break-in, I took a 3k drive to AZ in the winter (December/January). The temp was never above 40-degrees and got down into single digits at night on I-40 near Flagstaff. The other 4k miles have been between Los Angeles/San Diego and San Francisco. I all but stopped driving the vehicle in March 2011, save for a few miles here and there due to my travel schedule, so really no hot weather driving whatsoever.

To be honest I wasn't expecting 20k miles, but I was thinking around 15k. 7k miles seems absurd and while I'm aware there's no warranty for tires, to me it appears the tires are defective or the car was delivered with alignment way out of whack. But, the tires are wearing as evenly as a pancake, completely flat across the tread (I know the alignment can still be out, though).

I don't have the exact alignment numbers. My dealer wanted $255.00 to give those numbers to me (nice guys- given I've had the car for less than 11 of the 12 months I've owned it) There front and rear appear to be toed-in to a visible degree. Camber appears to be 0-degrees, but that's using my naked eye, and means nothing, as the car would probably need to be unsprung for me to see anything amiss.

I'm thinking back to my racing days, toeing the fronts out, ever so slightly in creating, may help in the handling department with stability, but might produce even more wear.Toeing them in, would produce quicker steering response, but less stability. Correct me here, if I'm wrong. It's been awhile.

Lastly- yes they are bridgestone runflats Sportmaxx tires. I've had okay results with the tires in the past on different vehicles. I suppose I will have to make a call to BMW and see what they have to say. I was told the OBD (or BMW's version of it) stores G-forces the car is exposed to, along with a myriad of other factors, like maximum speed, and pretty much everything else one can think of, so the dealer can tell if the car is driven in a hard manner, or abused etc. (again, this is what I was told by the dealer)

If it were my driving I'd not complain, but honestly even though this car can handle remarkably well, It probably has less than 2 to 5 miles of spirited driving. The I-5 Grapevine is the most mountainous road the car has been on and those aren't the types of turns (engineered radius roads) that put much stress on the tires

As a side note, I do have the adaptive drive suspension option. I wonder if that's causing additional wear, as the suspension is substantially more taunt than the 35Ds I've driven that do not have this option.

Again, thoughts are very appreciated and thanks for the advice given. It's much appreciated.

What pressures do you keep them at? Do you check your tire gauge against another one?

I was going to ask that question. Also did all 4 tires wear out or just the front, back or a single one? Is the wear across the whole tire, inside edge, outside edge, middle, etc?

Prefect wear is all 4 tires across the whole tires. Typical wear is outsides of fronts from driving too hard, or insides of rears from typical factory camber settings. Middles worn mean over inflation, inside and outside edges together mean under inflation.

to compare, my toyo proxes stII all-season 20s are showing very few signs of wear after 20k miles (sounds crazy), and I'm not exactly easy on them. Lots of local roads and turns, drive somewhat aggressively on the highway.

i now have over 48K miles on my 19" Toyo Proxes STII XL tires. and i drive it like i stole it.