i3s non staggered / square tire setup

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OregonI3S

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2021
Messages
8
Just noticed after taking the winter wheel and tire setup off (which is square by the way) that the rear wheels are using the same tires as the front despite OEM spec from BMW being wider in the rear vs front.

I just purchased the car two months ago from a non BMW dealer. Shame on me for not checking the tires on all 4 corners and ensuring the staggered setup. Any issues running the front tire size on all four corners as a square setup? I did confirm the rear wheels are the correct size at 6Jx20.
 
The early North American i3 Mega World BEV had a square wheel and tire setup, 5 x 19" wheels and 155 mm tires on all corners, probably similar to your winter tire setup. Many i3 owners run the same 155 mm winter tires on all corners even with 5.0" front wheels and 5.5" rear wheels. So running narrower rear tires than stock, even on wider rear wheels, hasn't caused significant problems. Exceeding the narrower rear tire's load rating doesn't seem to be an issue. However, it's likely that narrower rear tires, 175 mm in your case, will wear faster than the stock width tires, 195 mm in your case.
 
alohart said:
The early North American i3 Mega World BEV had a square wheel and tire setup, 5 x 19" wheels and 155 mm tires on all corners, probably similar to your winter tire setup. Many i3 owners run the same 155 mm winter tires on all corners even with 5.0" front wheels and 5.5" rear wheels. So running narrower rear tires than stock, even on wider rear wheels, hasn't caused significant problems. Exceeding the narrower rear tire's load rating doesn't seem to be an issue. However, it's likely that narrower rear tires, 175 mm in your case, will wear faster than the stock width tires, 195 mm in your case.

Thanks for the help. Yep! I was running the rial 5x19 with the blizzaks this winter which was a square setup. I’m guessing the dealer or previous owner just replaced the rear tires and looked at what was on the front and got the same ones…strange nonetheless. I’ll call BMW and ensure there’s not warranty implications if I don’t run the 195 wider tires on the rear to ensure OEM spec for the i3s.

the current 175 wide tires didn’t look stretched on the wider wheel nor was any more rim exposed to my surprise. Assuming bmw says no warranty problems then I’ll just use these until it’s time to replace and go staggered at that point.
 
I can't imagine BMW would give you any kind of enthusiastic thumbs up for running what's not printed to the door decal. I mean heck, even some Costco's wont install tires if they, or the wheels, don't match what's printed on that holy table.

If you call BMW the first thing they'll probably do is ask you for a VIN and make a notation in their system. I remember when I brought a new Subaru in from out of state and had to get it smogged. The tech put it on the dyno not realizing the front wheels wanted to play, too, and it took me shouting through the waiting room glass to get them to stop. I immediately called Subaru customer service to ask if there were going to be any mechanical issues because of this. After describing the incident, the first thing the Subaru rep asked was... you guessed it, "What's your VIN?"

I hung up immediately. I didn't want that mark on my car's permanent record.

Because the non-S i3s run 175s in the rear (and as Art mentioned, early base models ran 155s), and the i3S doesn't weigh any more than the standard variant, 175 is more than adequate from a safety standpoint. It just may not have the corner grip or wear characteristics of the 195s.

Thankfully, BTW, the Subaru was fine well into the 100,000s.
 
It should be more OK with a BEV, the REX has more weight on rear wheels. So it can benefit from wider tires in the back.

I don't think there will be a major issue, the winter setup is much narrower and it still works.
 
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