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BMW 3-Series (E90 E92) Forum > E90 / E92 / E93 3-series Technical Forums > Wheels and Tires Forum Sponsored by The Tire Rack > Tire wear with staggered setup



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      01-29-2014, 08:55 PM   #1
driverman
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Tire wear with staggered setup

I've got a 2008 328i sedan with sports package. It has ~85K miles. Front tires are 225/45 17's; rears are 255/40 17's.

Up until this set of tires, the rears always wore out about twice as fast the fronts. On this set of Bridgestone Pole Position S-04s, the remaining tread after 14000 miles is 8/32 in front and 7/32 in back. I took 4 tread depth readings on each tire and they were very consistent.

This is a mystery to me. Why are the rears wearing just a little faster than the fronts? Is it because I've been doing mostly freeway driving since I got the S04s? Would that explain almost even tire wear? Anybody got any ideas?

This raises a bigger question. Why do the rears wear out faster on a staggered setup?

Thanks.
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      01-29-2014, 09:00 PM   #2
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Obviously you know that the rears are going to wear faster due to rwd but every tire has different treadwear ratings.

The higher the treadwear rating the longer the tire is suppose to last. My old bfgoodrich tires lasted 10000 miles with tread rating of 200 and my new tires lasted 18000 with tread rating of 400.

Hope this answered your question
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      01-29-2014, 09:42 PM   #3
driverman
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I knew that tires on the drive axle wear out faster but I never fully understood why. I think it's because when the rear tires apply the power to the road, there is some degree of slippage and that slippage results in more wear.

If that's true, it would explain why my rears aren't wearing out much faster than the fronts like they usually did - because I'm not accelerating as much when I'm cruising at highway speeds than when I'm in start and stop traffic. Make sense?

But I still don't understand why rear tires wear out much faster with a staggered setup than a square setup. You'd think that wider rear tires would reduce slippage not increase it. Does anyone know?
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      01-30-2014, 08:23 AM   #4
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I believe the rears wear out faster than the fronts given the slippage you alluded to earlier. Here's some info straight from a BMW TIS describing just that:
http://forum.e46fanatics.com/attachm...1&d=1193096374

Also I'd imagine that it doesn't matter whether you have a square setup or a staggered setup; the rears are gonna wear at the same rate either way...the reason you get more life out of your tires on a squared setup is because you can rotate front to back in order to even out the wear. Theoretically, you could rotate front to back with an OEM staggered setup to even out the wear as well, but that obviously comes with a whole separate list of downsides in and of itself.
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      01-30-2014, 09:12 AM   #5
driverman
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Thanks for posting the link to the BMW TIS. It's got lots of useful information and it explains why tires on the drive axle wear faster.

I've owned 2 Mercedes E class cars, an E30 and an E28, all with RWD, and they didn't seem to wear the rear tires as fast as my E90 with staggered setup. It's true I rotated the tires on all those cars except the E90, but it appears that the staggered setup wears the rear tires about twice as fast as the fronts.
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      01-30-2014, 09:51 AM   #6
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Well, if you wanna prove that theory you can always rotate your current setup, drive it for a while, and see what happens...or find another set of of front wheels and run those in the rear as a squared setup.
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      01-30-2014, 09:53 AM   #7
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If you rotate the tires, then you're going to get more even life out of them. Basically you're spreading the wear out over 4 tires vs. 2. And rotating tires helps them wear more evenly so it will extend life some. My old FWD cars wore out front tires faster than the rears even though I rotate them. And right now my AWD car wears out rear tires at almost 2 to 1 vs. the front because it's RWD based and I can't rotate them. My RWD 335 wears out the rear much faster as well. Square vs. staggered has no effect except you can't rotate a staggered setup. That's why you're getting better wear out of the square.

It's all physics. Drive tires see all of the power transmitted from the engine, non drive side just rolls. Same holds true even for bicycles, I get through 2-3 rear tires for every 1 front.
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