I have a 2011 335i xdrive with sport package that has 17" all-season Contis. I will see how the tires perform in the NE Ohio winters. Should the all-seasons fail I will get Dunlop dedicated snows which means I will need to get summer wheels and tires. I am thinking about an 18" staggered set up but I would like ideas as to what wheels and tires some owners have on their 2011 335's or what combination would work. I would like to get OEM wheels and it doesn't matter to me if the tires are RFT or conventional. I am open to a 19" set up if you feel that would help the car's handling and ride. Any ideas?
Ride quality and handling, depending on how you define them, to whatever degree they go hand-in-hand, only do so inversely. In other words, the lower the tire profile and bigger the wheel you go for, the more your ride quality will suffer; Less sidewall means you're going to feel more thump-n-bump. So, if you want handling, as defined by increased lateral grip, you'll want wider tires, and perhaps wider wheels to go with them. Lower sidewall height (ie, a low aspect ratio number) means the tire has less sidewall to flex under lateral load, but, you'll notice bumps in the road more, too - and, there's less tire there cushioning the rim for pothole impacts, so lower profile tires increases the likelihood of suffering rim damage. Since there's no spare wheel/tire, you might want to consider the runflats, or at least, gauge your tolerance for the potential inconvenience of being stuck in place if something happens with a conventional tire; of course, one can be caught-out in the same situation with a RFT if it's damaged too badly to drive on, which is possible. With X-drive, I have to guess you'll probably get around in most situations ok. Check tire rack for wheel selection, you'll probably find over 100 wheel designs for your car - the cheapest will likely be the heaviest. BMW wheels are expensive, if you want a set of factory rims, perhaps try ebay or craigslist for hopefully reasonable pricing.
I'm not so sold on staggered setups. I have it on my current e90 and I think its more of an inconvenience than anything. I guess it looks cool, but it means that I can't really rotate my tires properly if I want. And the rears end up being more expensive than the fronts to replace. My snow setup is square and I think it handles more "neutral". I'd stay away from 19s in the midwest on account of the poorly maintained roads. I have 17s on my car and I still bend wheels on occasion - although less so after switching to non RFT. Michigan (where I live) has some of the worst roads I have driven on. I can't imagine Northern Ohio is much better.
I noticed a set of wheels for the 135 series, style 264, which I think look very good on the BMW and I wonder why they don't make this style of wheel for the 3 or 5 series. Will these wheels work on my 335i Xdrive with the sport package? I am thinking about the 18x8.5 square setup for summer performance tires.
The bolt pattern is probably the same, but if you can confirm the bolt pattern and offset are the same for an 18x8.5" that fits your car, then they'd work. You can use tire rack to look at offsets for 18x8.5 wheels for your car, you'll have to do some googling or digging to see if you can find something listing/showing the offset. Here's one ad from somebody who looks like they know enough about wheels to list the offset, says 52mm for 18x8.5's. If you can find some additional confirmation that's the right offset, then it would appear they'd fit, assuming identical bolt pattern. http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-135i-1-...pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&vxp=mtr
All-Season didn't work so I have installed Dunlop run-flat snows and the ride has already improved. Looking for summer wheels and tires now and found Voxx MG3 wheels which look very good on the car. Although the wheels have the 5-120 bolt pattern and they only come in 18x8, there are 2 different offsets, 20mm and 40mm. Since I am contemplating a square setup 225/40Rx18, which offset would work best on my 2011 335i xDrive?
I don't know which would work best - interesting they offer the same design and width with two different offsets. Looking at the selection of 18" wheels on the Tire Rack website for a 2011 335xi with sport package, (but not M-sport package), I saw offsets ranging from a low of 15mm (1 wheel style only) to a max of 59 mm (also only 1 wheel). Virtually all the rest 18x8's were 32mm offset, or 40mm offset. http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/techpage.jsp?techid=101 If I perceive the Tire Rack's explanation of offset correctly, the higher # offset wheel you have, the more inboard your tires/wheels will be - so, the lower the offset number, the more you increase your track width, with a higher risk of having the outboard edge of the tires rubbing your fenders or fender lips. An increased track width should, theoretically, somewhat improve lateral grip. A higher offset means less risk of outboard fender rubbing, but too extreme and you'd have the inboard edge of the tire rubbing the inboard fender well. Keep in mind, it's only a difference of 20mm, or a bit more than 3/4 of an inch (.787 inches), which, for street driving, probably isn't realistically enough to make much of any difference for any driving you'd be doing. Some tire manufacturers may have their tires nominally wider than the absolute width specification, one potential problem is IF, say, the 20mm wheels put a typical tire close to the fender lip, a 'fat' tire might rub. Difficult to get any hard info on that type of stuff unless you happen to find someone who has the exact same wheels on the same car and can share their experience. Based on the range of fitments shown on the Tire Rack site, it looks like you can put some faith in either wheel fitting your car. 40mm looks like a safe choice based on the number shown with that offset, but with a 15mm shown, presumably a 20mm offset should fit without a problem as well. The Tire Rack folks are pretty thorough with their fitment assessments, so if they have a 15mm listed, I'd expect it to fit with no issues, which at least may be helpful in judging fitment for other wheels.
I have settled on the BMW style 287 but I will put a square setup on the car. Which is better the 18x8 with offset of 34 or the 18x8.5 with the offset of 37, or does it matter?
Since there is a difference, all I can say is it may matter - I've heard from one member that they're running 255 width tires on 18x8.5's, 38mm offset, all corners, on their LCI E92 with no rubbing issues. You can use this to compare offsets - http://www.1010tires.com/Tools/Wheel-Offset-Calculator
