Sponsored by The Tire Rack

[sonus]

When signing final paperwork for my 128i, the finance person tried to sell me Tire and Wheel Coverage for $1149. I declined, though I still have a few days to change my mind. Has anyone else bought this? Think it's worth it? I know we have awful roads around MA, but I've never had a problem with other cars.

I told her that I was thinking I'd be using non-BMW wheels and tires in the winter, and that I may change tires for non-runflats at some point in the future. She said that non-RFTs require a "suspension modification," and the suspension would not be covered under warranty if I used non-RFTs.

Has anyone else heard of these "suspension mods" for normal tires, or heard of anyone being denied warranty service? The sales, er, finance person assured me that:

1. I am crazy for not buying the Tire and Wheel Coverage in Massachusetts.
2. People have been denied warranty service on their suspension parts because they had non-RFTs mounted.

[jmcphillips1]

I don't think I would buy the tire warranty for that price, but plenty of people have changed their tires to non run flats with no issues

[fourtailpipes]

Originally Posted by sonus

I told her that I was thinking I'd be using non-BMW wheels and tires in the winter, and that I may change tires for non-runflats at some point in the future. She said that non-RFTs require a "suspension modification," and the suspension would not be covered under warranty if I used non-RFTs.

false and false.

Originally Posted by sonus

Has anyone else heard of these "suspension mods" for normal tires,

non-rft tires will have softer sidewalls. the oem suspension is designed a little on the soft side to accomodate the rigid rfts. some people prefer to stiffen things up a bit after switching to non-rtf tires, but that's by no means required.

Originally Posted by sonus

...or heard of anyone being denied warranty service? The sales, er, finance person assured me that:

1. I am crazy for not buying the Tire and Wheel Coverage in Massachusetts.
2. People have been denied warranty service on their suspension parts because they had non-RFTs mounted.

never heard of anyone being denied any type of warranty claim based on tires. if you purchased the wheel/tire coverage and bent a wheel while using a non-rft tire... then they'd have a reasonable justification to deny wheel repair/replacement. but no, this should have no impact whatsoever on your vehicle warranty/maintenance otherwise. if it helps at all, i took the RFTs off my car within a week of taking delivery. it's since received suspension/brake-related service from 4 different BMW dealers in the NJ/PA area, none of whom even so much as mentioned the tires.

FYI if you do decide to go with the wheel/tire coverage, search around the forums a bit first... i've heard of people getting that plan for way less.

[Tom K.]

Originally Posted by fourtailpipes

non-rft tires will have softer sidewalls. the oem suspension is designed a little on the soft side to accomodate the rigid rfts. some people prefer to stiffen things up a bit after switching to non-rtf tires, but that's by no means required.

+1.

For normal driving, there is no need to alter the suspension for non RFTs.

And mounting non RFTs have nothing to do with the BMW car warranty.

And while most BMW dealers will not repair non RFTs, any competent tire shop will.

After replacing the worn out OEM Goodyear NCT5 RFTs on my 128i with Conti DWS tires, I found the ride to be pleasantly smoother, but the initial turn-in feel was a tad mushy when driving with spirit on mountain roads. The easy solution was to increase the tire pressures from 32/35 to about 35/38 - and then set them back to stock for normal travel on the collection of potholes which pass for local public roads.

Tom

[sonus]

Maybe this is a case of "official policy" being that suspension damage while running non-RFTs is uncovered, but that most of the service departments have more common sense than that? Hoping so.

Regardless, they tell me the tire and wheel policy won't cover non-"BMW approved" tires and wheels. So if I don't want to pay $400/tire or some-such awful sum of money for the remainder of the warranty, it probably doesn't make much sense to buy the warranty.

Hmm... just thinking out loud here:

In 5 years, let's say I drive 60k miles. Let's say RFTs last 18k miles.

With the warranty, and buying the approved RFTs from the dealer, I'll need to buy 3 sets of tires in that 5 year period (1 summer, 2 winter, starting now with summers). We'll say the tires are $400 each (which is what the salesperson*cough*finance person told me).

Warranty + Tires = $1149 + 3 x (4 x $400) = $5949

That assumes I don't buy separate winter wheels, which will probably be crazy expensive if they're "approved," and which then adds some extra money for tire changeovers too.

Without the warranty, I can go buy some nice $200 tires from TireRack, and I've already got a set of winter wheels + tires that I bought from a forum member for $400. So over 5 years, I'll need to buy 1 set of summers and 1 set of winters. Plus I hear that TPMS changed in 2011 So the TPMS sensors that came with the $400 wheels+tires will probably give me codes, and maybe I'd need to buy some of those to be code-free. Say a $400 one-time fee.

$400(already spent) + $400(TPMS) + 2 * (4 x $200) = $2400

I'd be taking the gamble that a dealer might refuse to do suspension work under warranty, but there are a lot of dealers nearby-ish and they'd all have to say no.

So then, how likely is it that I go through $3549 of tire and wheel damage over the next 5 years? That's almost 9 tires at $400/per. Or 4 tires and 3 wheels (assuming wheels are something ridiculous like $600). I haven't dented a rim or damaged a tire on potholes ever before. Maybe I've been lucky so far.

I think I've justified this to myself Thanks for bearing with me. Feel free to check and debate my math, and tell me if I'm way off on the ballpark figures.

[fourtailpipes]

here's a simpler non-quantitative way of looking at it:

dealers offer this because on a whole, they make money on it. so if you're an average consumer, the (present value of the) sum of your repair costs would be less than the total cost of the coverage. don't do it unless you get a better than average price on the coverage, OR you do an unusually high amount of damage to wheels and tires, AND want RFTs for the next 5 years.

[sonus]

Originally Posted by fourtailpipes

here's a simpler non-quantitative way of looking at it:

dealers offer this because on a whole, they make money on it. so if you're an average consumer, the (present value of the) sum of your repair costs would be less than the total cost of the coverage. don't do it unless you get a better than average price on the coverage, OR you do an unusually high amount of damage to wheels and tires, AND want RFTs for the next 5 years.

That's another good way of looking at it, thanks

[Tom K.]

Originally Posted by sonus

That's another good way of looking at it, thanks

Exactly. Since I learned how to drive around potholes nearly ten years ago, I've had no tire and or wheel damage on 4 different BMWs.

Depending on how much snow you anticipate, I'd recommend the Dunlop D3 (or M3 RFT) winter performance tires. I ran the (non RFT) M3s on an E46 and they handled about 4" of snow with no problem. The real benefit was that performance on dry roads was also very good - without the jelly like feeling I got from the previous Blizzak MZ-01 "studless" snows.

Tom

[sonus]

I'll keep those tires in mind for when I need to buy another winter set, thanks.

For this winter, the set of tires + wheels I bought from a forum member had only a few hundred miles on them and have a ton of tread left. They're Blizzak WS-60s. If it were up to me I probably would have bought a more "performance winter" tire like the Dunlop Winter Sport 3Ds (or is it D3s?) I had on my WRX. I loved those tires. The AWD system may have had something to do with it, though

[ptack]

Always remember tha the dealership finance person is there to make sure the dealership makes as much money as possible on the sale. They are not doing you any favors. The wheel/tire insurance thing is a bet. You're betting you might need them to replace something, they are betting they won't - at least not very often. Your bet is probably based purely on a guess. They're bet (and price) is based on experience. Unless you're sure you're going to hammer the car on potholes and the like, I wouldn't pay them anything close to that.