Tyres, bloody tyres

[DaveB]

These may be the best looking wheels for an E53 X5 (I think), but sourcing new rear tyres has been a mission. 325/30/R21 are advertised as available in most places and are shown as in stock, but if you check they aren't. There's plenty of run flats, but I didn't want to mix types and they give a very choppy ride.

I wanted PZeros and after a few failed attempts and wasted journeys I called Pirelli directly. Yes they are still made, but the best lead time they could offer was 8 weeks. So with the MOT due in few days I had to find something. There's not much to choose from. 21" seems to be a real problem and I had the same problem with other suppliers with long lead times.

In the end I had to opt for Dunlop Sport Maxx Race XL which were mighty expensive. Having said that, the levels of grip are outstanding.

[X5-D-Sport]

There is a web site called Black-Circles..
From there you can source good priced rubber, pay on line & they are delivered to your nearest Kwik-Fit for fitting & balancing,...
May be worth a look ?

[Raj]

My old Alpina's...I do miss them tbh.

I had heard that non rft ones were starting to become an issue to source as most companies are all just moving to rft due to demand. I still have a couple of sources that could probably have helped buddy.

The Dunlops are excellent though even though pricey.

[X5Sport]

How were they for wear?  I had Sportmaxx on the X but 14-16,000 tyre life miles was rubbish!  Grip was excellent.

[DaveB]

[quote="X5-D-Sport Salisbury"]
There is a web site called Black-Circles..
From there you can source good priced rubber, pay on line & they are delivered to your nearest Kwik-Fit for fitting & balancing,...
May be worth a look ?
[/quote]

Yep there is, but I ordered the (in stock) tyres, paid for them, turned up and there were no tyres. They didn't contact me to say they were on an 8 week lead time. I was duly refunded, but I had a 20 mile wasted journey and there were no non-runflat alternatives.

I then used the lesser known (and much cheaper) tyre-shopper.co.uk who it turns out are actually good old National Tyres despite being a separate company. They have less fitting centres, mainly cos they use the National Tyres places and similarly, I order the tyres, paid, turned up and yet again no tyres. They offered me a refund, but also went out of their way to source some tyres, which truned up in a couple of days.

As to tyre wear, I've no idea yet, but I suspect that high grip levels and high wear go together. I only do a couple of thousand miles a year so it's not really a problem.