# Tire upgrade



## Fiveforty (Aug 4, 2003)

Hi, I have an 02 540i with the S.P. and Dunlop sp2000 oem tires. I feel that they wander on the highway and was thinking of an upgrade to a better road holding tire while maintaining a quiet ride. Any recommendations?


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## bmw540i (Mar 30, 2003)

Fiveforty said:


> Hi, I have an 02 540i with the S.P. and Dunlop sp2000 oem tires. I feel that they wander on the highway and was thinking of an upgrade to a better road holding tire while maintaining a quiet ride. Any recommendations?


Try Michelin or Bridgestone they should work for you. :thumbup:


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## Fiveforty (Aug 4, 2003)

Fiveforty said:


> Hi, I have an 02 540i with the S.P. and Dunlop sp2000 oem tires. I feel that they wander on the highway and was thinking of an upgrade to a better road holding tire while maintaining a quiet ride. Any recommendations?


Thanks but I was looking for more specifics, model and brand etc...


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## PropellerHead (Jan 3, 2002)

Fiveforty said:


> Thanks but I was looking for more specifics, model and brand etc...


I just put Bridgestone S03 Pole Positions on my 18" BBS RKII's.


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## BillP (Jan 4, 2002)

Fiveforty said:


> Hi, I have an 02 540i with the S.P. and Dunlop sp2000 oem tires. I feel that they wander on the highway and was thinking of an upgrade to a better road holding tire while maintaining a quiet ride. Any recommendations?


Let's look at your concerns more closely ...

Wandering: I believe you are referring to "tramlining" (tendency of the tires to follow grooves in the road, especially on the freeway) and it isn't really an issue with the tire brand/model, it's an issue of the low profile and width of the tire. Most tires of the same size will do the same, though I am sure there is a small difference between tire compounds and tread designs. The level of tramlining is also not related to the "road holding" aspect of the tire. Two separate issues.

Quiet: Doesn't go with performance. S03s like PropellerHead and I have are awesome tires, super sticky, but are not terribly quiet and actually get MUCH louder with age. Additionally, they don't last too terribly long. Mine have about 12K miles and I'll be replacing the rears ASAP with the fronts in another 5K-10K miles.

I suggest you go to tirerack.com and check out their customer feedback results - doing so should help you focus on a couple of possible candidates. The results displayed on tirerack's site closely match what I have gathered from my own experience and from reading perhaps 1000 posts on the subject. Make sure you look at the number of surveyed miles since a small number means the results aren't meaningful. Also be careful to not compare results across tire categories. For example, a person who buys high performance tires and a person who buys grand touring tires have radically different tolerances for noise and completely different expectations for handling.

Here is the URL for the max performance summer tires like the S03s: http://tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/max.jsp

And here is the index for the other survey results: http://tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/index.jsp

Bill


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## mottati (Apr 15, 2003)

*SO3's*

I too have used the SO3's on my 528 for awhile, until I got R compound track tires actually. They were a great all around performance tire. Good in cal. winters, good (for a street tire) on the track. I didn't have any trouble with noise, i thought they stayed quiet during their entire (albeit short) life. I did go thru rears every 10k and fronts every 20k, with no rotation, and maybe 5 weekends of track use per year.

I've now switched to continental's new sport contact 2 for the street. I wanted to try something with a little better life, and the conti's are rated at 280 for treadwear. So far, so good, maybe 4k on them, quiet and smooth. My past experience with the original conti sport contact was noisy and vibrating after 10k, i've read the 2's are much better, time will tell.

My experience is wide tires wander, they follow the grooves in the roadways. I don't think there's much you can do to get away from that.
Mike


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## Nick325xiT 5spd (Dec 24, 2001)

Buy non-sport wheels if tire wander is very important. You can also have your car re-aligned with as much toe-in as possible up front. That may also help.


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## JEM (May 3, 2003)

A few comments:

The SP2000Es are very good everyday tires. They have decent grip, good steering response, good life (should last 30K+ in normal road use if rotated) and are reasonably smooth and quiet. There aren't many tires that do notably better at the ride/grip compromise. 

Wider tires tend to 'nibble' more, have less of an idea where straight-ahead is, though I've never found any E39 with factory wheels to be particularly bad in this area. The recirculating-ball steering in the V8 E39s is a little 'numb' on-center under 75-80mph, perhaps one just needs to drive faster?

How many miles on the car? I try to make sure to have the alignment checked (and set, if necessary) every 20K miles or so at a shop that knows what they're doing. 

The S-03s are great, they ride pretty well for a serious high-performance tire, very good turn-in (though some would say a little softer than the earlier S-02) and are notably quieter than the S-02 was. That said, they're overkill for most people, and I wouldn't bet on getting more than 20-22K miles out of a set. 

Our '98 540iA went from SP2000Es to S-02s and now back to SP8000s. My '00 M5 had SP8080s as OEM (a good tire, but not quite good enough for the M5) and is now on S-03s.


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## Fiveforty (Aug 4, 2003)

Thanks for the feedback, I'll consider the suggestions and also check the tirerack.

Thanks Again!

Bob


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