I'm a big fan of Michelin hi-perf all-seasons, Pilot Sport A/S 3+ for instance, if you have more snow maybe the tread design on the All-Season 4? Read Tire Rack reviews & comparos; I got some Conti DWS's 'coz there were no Michelins in that size, so far have been duly impressed, great rain performance, tho the Michelins had better test results.
Thanks. I have been using the Conti's on my E 46 325Ci. Great performance. On the 525 this has happened to me for a while now. Seems like the inner side of the rear tires wear first. Is this a common issue on this car?
The awd models _might_ wear differently, but really, any BMW, certainly any rear-wheel drive BMW - yes, due to the negative camber in the rear. Typically front camber is zero - you'll even out the wear if you don't run a staggered setup and rotate fronts to rears every 5k. (Staggered, all you could do is swap side-to-side, assuming the tread pattern allows for that, and that doesn't even out any rear wear unless you flip the tires on their rims - bit of a nuisance). If you run tires with an asymmetric tread design and a square setup (same wheels & tires & size all 4 corners) then you can rotate to any corner. If you have a directional pattern & same sizes, you can rotate fronts & rears keeping to the same side of the car. To swap car sides for rotating, directional tires would have to be flipped on their rims. A symmetric tread design, one side of the tire's supposed to be mounted out, so to even out wear there, they would have to swap front/rear though it wouldn't really matter if they stayed on the same side of the car - they could go to diagonal corners, just can't be flipped on the rims. BMW went to staggered setups to make the cars have more inherent understeer, the handling balance is better with a square setup - apparently, in the past BMW's priority was performance over potential liability, but it's true it would be easier to get in over one's head with a square tire setup.
