[Eddy@ApexWheels]

Russ,

I apologize for being unable to reply sooner. Although David has not experienced these kinds of issues, I have come across variations of these problems before as I have much more 1 series experience.

I will begin by saying your issues are minor, solvable, and we'll help you do so.

The 1 series fitment is inherently an extremely tight fitment no matter what. It's the most difficult BMW fitment there is. If you consider the tire size you're running and ignore all wheel width and offset specs, you can see that any movement inward or outward can quickly have consequences, so fine tuning offset becomes necessary as you go wide. The offsets we have selected work with a lot of tires in those sizes, and sadly we cannot test them with every single brand/model of the same size. From the pictures I can see those P-zero tires run extremely wide (balloon shape), which causes more fitment issues vs. other available tires. We don't ever use the P-zero tires in our testing, as there are other performance tires we like more, and I don't believe we recommend them to customers for purchase either due to our lack of use/experience with them. I apologize if you were directly recommended that brand/model tire by one of our staff. I'm not sure where the wheels were purchased from as they appear to be powder coated gloss black. We should have steered you towards another tire brand/model that fit easier if you spoke with us, but I can't speak on behalf of all our staff.

That being said, the rear should not be a concern. The tire is slightly touching the foam liner in the rear and this will have no drivability impact. Those liners are not precisely made or mounted, and it makes sense that on one side you don't have the issue and on the other side you do. Slight variations in alignment and even the molded shape of that liner will allow for that 1mm of contact/rubbing, as they aren't usually a precise fit.

The rear suspension has a lot of droop when in the air and the suspension goes aggressively towards positive camber when hanging. This will result in even more contact with the liner when servicing the car as the suspension moves the tire in toward the rear subframe and body. This again has no impact on actual use. We just did some testing on the M235i yesterday (with the 1 series fitment) and it's exactly the same. A touch of contact at full droop (I can spin the tire but there is some added friction with the 265/35/18 NT-05's used for testing), but everything is fine when driving. I know you expected a 100% clean fit, but please consider the touching the cheap foam is part of the cost of having a wide fitment. The cost of the performance is essentially a rub mark which will self clearance itself. The alternative is a narrow tire fitment, slow car.

Your front strut tube contact is due to the shape of the tire you're using. It's significantly meatier on the sides vs. most other brands, and there was no way for you to know that when picking them. A 3-5mm spacer is what you would want up front to clear that strut. We will happy send you spacers or compensate you for the cost of spacers if you want to source them more locally to you. This will push your setup further out which will create a new fender side issue in your case due to the tires you are running. You did pull your pins but you also added M3 control arms, and those arms push out the bottom of the suspension. That adds negative camber, but doesn't add more fender clearance.

I see that you're considering Dinan plates, but I would highly recommend Ground Control Street plates. Their street plates are not full metal to metal, and have a bushing at the top, but the plate is still adjustable and can work with OEM style springs. I run them on my 100% daily driven 335d with MCS coilovers and they ride fantastic, are silent, and aren't expensive. Dinan plates will not get you to an ideal camber setting, are unadjustable, add stack height, and are expensive for what they are. (please note: we don't sell either of these plates and this is a personal referral to what I know works well for other 1 series owners and for myself) With camber plates you can confidently run the 5mm spacer and clear the fender. If you have all those other suspension mods, but you don't have a healthy amount of negative camber up front (1.5-1.7 degrees on a street car), you'd be doing the other modifications a disservice.

The rubbing on the oil cooler duct is a combination of a few things. 235/40/18 tires are taller than stock, so when you have that size along with a very meaty sidewall, you can get very light contact on the duct grill that sticks out into the fender well. That too will self-clearance itself, and really should only happen at lock. The M3 control arms that push out the bottom of the suspension can also get the tire that much closer to contacting the plastic, as every millimeter counts. The real cure here is running our preferred/recommended tire size in combination with camber plates. Camber plates are required, but the absolute best setup on the car is a 245/35/18 front tire. That tire is the correct overall diameter, and even though it's wider, it doesn't "reach out" as far as the 235 size does towards the oil cooler. So you don't need to down grade your tire width, you can actually upgrade your tire width, but downgrade your tire diameter. Sadly not ever tire model/size is available in 245/35/18 and you'll want about 1.5 degrees to fit them. This slight contact here is not worth getting new tires, and in many cases we've found that contact is also caused by plastic liners that are out of shape or not installed perfectly. Having removed liners many times in testing, we've installed them wrong/loose so it may be worth checking to see if everything is as tight and in position as possible.

In summary, the rear should not be an issue. The front would significantly benefit from real camber plates, a spacer, and in the future a 245/35/18 tire. Let us know what sized spacer you would like and we'll get you taken care of.

Thank you,

Eddy P