XSeries-forum

Based upon a thread in the 'buy & sell' on winter tyres I noticed this article on the web about the 'Hotel' service from BMW, interesting, thoughts gents?

http://www.tyrepress.com/News/1/22/20232.html

Good idea.....but knowing BMW it will cost an absolute fortune and then when you come to pick them up they would have lost one.......would much rather get a set of replica's with GOOD winter tyres on and keep them in my garage....

Finding someone who will supply a set of replicas with Good Winter tyres is not as easy as it sounds. Anybody know a good supplier?

Look out on ebay for a set of original 17" X5 alloys - or 18" if you have a 4.8 - and buy the tyre separately. That's what I did both last year when I found a set of 17" wheels, which I had for sale on the forum and on ebay for around 2 weeks (now sold) when I part-ex'ed my previous X for a 4.8 and needed the bigger alloys. I kept a close watch on ebay and bought a set of 18" alloys and tyres (sadly not winter tyres, but I guess I can sell them!) and my favourite winter tyres I managed to find at Tyremen as Camskills are totally out of stock and do not know when they will get any......

The dealer gave me the new winter tyre brochure when I picked up the 4.8 the tyres cost a small fortune from BMW of course - I was quoted nearly £300 PER TYRE for the Dunlop Grandtrek or whatever they were and that's without the approx £2000 for the style 99 star spoke alloys recommended........crazy money!!! If you keep watching out on ebay you should find a set of alloys. I'd personally buy the tyres now as I'm sure they'll be hard to find in the next 6-8 weeks. Check the old ad I had in the for sale section - original ellipsoid 17" alloys may lack a bit of street cred, but there's not much of that in an icy ditch with your 22" superwide skates all messed up........ Bonus is that the smaller wheels with softer winter tyres are a very comfortable ride!!

eBay wheels are fine until you try getting them delivered! I enquired about a set a couple of weeks back to find it was going to be £220 for delivery !!!

There are numerous couriers, some who advertise wheel delivery on ebay, who do the job for around £35 - I just sold my old 17" wheels and it cost £35 to send them via DCS couriers - service was excellent by the way- just type in "alloy wheel delivery" or similar on ebay. No need to pay silly prices unless of course you live in the Highlands or islands, when delivery is more expensive, but surely not THAT much more

Does anyone know any more about the hotel scheme? I have just been told that going forward you have to have winter tyres when driving in Germany (trying to find out more on that) and this might be a solution.

Thanks for info anyone might have.

Hotel scheme costs $200 per season in Canada - about 140 quid when taxes included.

Peter T

The BMW Dealer around me isn't offering it as they have nowhere to store the unused set. If we had a set for the E53 aNd the E71 that's a lot of cost and space required. i am looking at it for the X6 though, but only if I cand find rims at a sensible price. Smallest I've seen in the car's handbook is a 19". No idea if a smaller one can be fitted to a 40d because of the front brakes diameter. Tyres I can source in Biggleswade as there's a good cheap supplier there.

I've just persuaded the Kia dealership where I ordered my new company car to offer me tyre hotel services based on BMWs offer to BMW owners and they are doing it........being Kia, I get the package for £750 which includes storage rather than BMWs £2K or so! Thumbs up BMW for launching this so I could organise myself a deal with Kia for my much-anticipated new launch Sportage.......