Costco Tires/Alignment question
 

Anyone ever buy/install tires at Costco on their X?

The tech at the dealer also said BMW recommends an alignment every year. This seems extremely excessive to me. Thoughts?

Question 1: I would not buy tires at costco unless they were a decent brand.

Question 2: unless you have problems with the wear patterns there is no need to align.

I have bought tires (Michelins) for the X and the 5 series at Costco without a problem.

I bought 19" Bridgestone Dueler RFTs at Costco. Great price and great service. I'll definitely do it again.

Common misconception. Yes, gross misalignment will cause uneven wear.

But you can have sub-optimal alignment settings, even within the bMW recommended specs, and you will get accelerated wear. Even wear, but accelerated nonetheless.

IMO

Finally, I think people can find that the take home message that the service you get at any TIRE store is only as good as the management and the tech doing the work. Bad stuff happens at BMW dealers- great service can happen at Costco or BigO or Discount tire.

Frankly I spread my purchases around- ALL my installs on on 5 cars are done by one shop, one specific tech. Sometimes I let them make some money on the tire purchase, but many times I can get $500 tires for MUCH less via other sources- they know it, and will mount them with no questions. I pay them 40 a tire to do it, which includes Roadforce. They know that overall I am a solid customer and it works for me and them in the long run.

A

I was told that due to the 5 having Active Steering that you have to have your alignment done by a BMW dealership.