Ordered Winter Tires

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, all but the base i3 (Mega in the USA) come with staggered wheels in the 19", and the 20" are all staggered.

 

[RExingIT]

RexingIT, did you ever resolve the issue? I had the Nokia's installed on our i3 REx last week, and am observing the same behavior.

btw, check out my posting under troubleshooting (Winter Tires, Caution...). I'm wondering if putting the Nokia's onto 175 rims in the back has something to do with it.

Did you ever resolve?

Thanks.

Syd

'14 Giga Rex, all options except for 20" wheels.

Still unsolved. Still at the dealer.

 

[user 2331]

What are you doing for wheels if you don't buy through BMW?

 

[RExingIT]

So here's the situation.

After my car being at the dealer for about a month, they finally figured out whats going on, but I have to admit I'm not happy with the result.

The issue is indeed caused by the slightly different diameter of the rear wheels caused by putting a slightly narrower tire on the wider rims. I'm guessing that the car looks at the percentage difference between the rear and front rotational speeds as at low speeds (below about 20 mph), the regen still works ok. The most annoying thing about this whole issue is that I'd contacted the iGenius line and was explicitly told that this wouldn't cause an issue.

Now I'm stuck with 3 choices.
1. Buy a new set of wheels for the rears in the narrower size and re-mount the winters on those.
2. Remount the all season tires on the rear wheels.
3. Ignore the issue and drive with an unpredictable car.

I'm pretty pissed at BMW NA right now as I was told this would not be an issue.

 

[i3atl]

I'm surprised that this is an issue, but I'm more surprised that anyone at BMW would've told you it was acceptable to install the 155 width tires on the rear wheels. The specs for the 155 width tire options list the acceptable wheel width as 4-5".

 

[jadnashuanh]

Not defending BMWNA, but I think there was a miscommunication...using the 155 series winter tires on the rear of an i3 is not a problem IF you install them on an appropriate wheel. My car came with the wider rear wheels, but I bought four new wheels to install the winter tires. There's a reason why they went with a larger diameter tire on the wider rear tires, and one must always keep the rolling diameters within tolerance...that's typically about 2% or less, but I do not know the specific tolerance on the i3. My guess without being able to measure it is that yours are out of that tolerance.

 

[I33t]

1. Buy a new set of wheels for the rears in the narrower size and re-mount the winters on those.

Do it.

Also, seeing as iGenius made an error, I'd be sticking it to them for a discount on the wheels.

We don't get winter snow here, but if we did, I'd just have a complete spare set of wheels/tyres for winter. Makes more sense to me than having tyres removed and refitted.

 

[Apial]

155 width tyres do NOT fit on the rear 5.5J wheels. Whoever told you so is wrong and should take some responsibility for this. The skinniest tyres that can be fitted on a 5.0J wheel are 155, and that means that fitting 155 to 5.5J is stretching them with the risk they will pop off.

You can fit 155 winter tyres to all 19" wheels, both front and rear, ONLY if they are on 5.0J wheels. This means you must buy an extra pair of 5.0J wheels, if your car came with the staggered wheel arrangement , as the bare minimum.

Fitting a mixture of winter and all season tyres is also a big NO. The difference in grip will cause all sorts of handling issues, and most likely lead to the back wheels overtaking the front.

Also it is cheaper to buy a complete BMW tyre/rim/sensor package than it is to buy just the rim alone. That is assuming you want 427/428 wheels?
In your situation I would be buying the latter as the best and cheapest option. You will of course end up with spare winter tyres for future use, but they will not have cost any extra.

 

[Pac]

Hello Apial,
I just talked to Bridgestone and they told me that BMW has approved the use of the Blizzak winter tires on the rear 5.5" wider wheels, and that it would not affect the car in any way. The customer agent found this information as added notes when researching the tires. I also contacted Tire Rack and they told me that in general using the 155 on the 5.5" wheels did not represent a safety issue. That there was no risk of having a tire popping off. They did tell me that there was a risk of having the wheel a little more exposed to curb rash, etc. My BMW dealer also stated that it was not a problem.

We have been using the winter tires for a few days and so far there has not been any issues. The only thing I noticed was that they used 33psi instead of 41psi, probably based on the door label. That was an easy fix.
We only had the car for a couple of weeks before we swapped to winter tires but I did feel a little less regenerative power. But barely noticeable. I thought it was just related to the "softness" of the winter tire compound.

I will stop by at the dealer in the next few days and asked them again about this matter.
Thanks!

 

[i3atl]

If the 5.5" rim is acceptable for the 155 width tires, they need to update their spec sheets - both the Blizzak and Nokian list the max width as 5".

Blizzak LM500: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp?tireMake=Bridgestone&tireModel=Blizzak+LM-500&partnum=57QR9LM500

Nokian Hakkapeliitta R2: (see page 9) https://dc602r66yb2n9.cloudfront.net/pub/web/attachments/others/pricelists/NT_US_Product_guide.pdf

 

[Pac]

What I understood from my conversation with the Bridgestone representative is that it was BMW the one that had stated that for the i3 the 155 winter tires could be mounted on the 5.5". It was not a Bridgestone statement referring to all applications.

What the representative from tire rack told me was that it should be OK to install the 155 on the 5.5" since it was only .5" above the suggested range. But he did not know anything regarding BMW's statement.

I agree with you that the information should be more clear. I too had lots of doubts with the conflicting information.

The following article also says that the 155 could be installed in the 5.5" wheels.

http://bmwi3.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/bmw-i3-wheels-and-tires-what-you-need.html
From the article:
"If you have any of the three 19" wheels then all you need to do is buy the winter tires and you can swap them for the winter and put your Ecopia EP600's back on in the spring."

 

[crrii]

Hello, I new to the forum, but if anyone is interested, I have a brand new set of Bridgestone Blissak winter tires already mounted on brand new BMW i3 wheels that I'm wanting to sell. I bought them, mounted them on my i3 for 3 days, until I had to sell the car, long story. Anyway, I now have this great set of wheels and tires, but no i3. If anyone is interested please let me know. I'll make someone a great deal.