tires

[77vetteguy]

ok the tires on my car are 205 65 r15. however these are the wrong wheels for the car. they are 5 series instead of 3. for now i dont have money to buy new ones. the problem is that i need new tires and the ones that are on the car rub when i go through dips on the highway. so my question is, what size of tire could i get so that it doesnt rub?

[E36 Phantom]

That sounds very close to being right, 205/60/15 is OEM for the 3 series, I'm surprised that increasing the AR by that small of an amount would really hurt anything. Although, if you've got 5 series wheels (if you *really* do, which is surprising) then your offset is way off, so that would cause you to be rubbing towards the outside which means nothing you can get that' remotely close to OEM will really help you.

[77vetteguy]

yea i know there 5 series. the tires dont have to be oem. my friend was telling me you can get low profile tires for regular wheels. that true?

[E36 Phantom]

Sure, you could get low profile tires for anything if they make 'em. They definitely make low-pros in 205 width, but I don't know about the 15".

But, that doesn't really make any sense to do. You'd have to go with stupidly small tires to compensate for the wrong offset you have. I'm confused why you don't just get basic E36 wheels. You could pick up bottlecaps or something on C/L for $50 and sell the 5er wheels for the same and you won't have to waste money on tires that aren't even the right size.

Or, you might see about just rolling your fenders. Might be the best course of action.

[77vetteguy]

there arnt many bmws in iowa. or atleast people that are selling wheels. so my only option are tires with less sidewall

[E36 Phantom]

Lol, ah, I see. Or fender rolling.

Really, I think first off you need to figure out where they're rubbing.

Take the wheels off, and get some bright colored chalk and cover the whole inside of the wheel wells with the chalk, go drive over some spots where you know it rubs, and see where the chalk is rubbed off. If it's all over the middle area, just go with low-pros. If it's just the edges by the fenders, fender rolling would be a lot cheaper than 4 new tires and maintain a closer-to-oem tire.

[77vetteguy]

well it needs new tires anyway. theres only about %40 (probably less) tred left and its starting to snow. but its probably rubbing on the edge since i cant get my fingers in there.

[E36 Phantom]

That makes sense.

My point about the low-pros is that with suspension travel, I think you'd have to go pretty far down for it not to rub. Then it'd look a bit silly. The wheel travel makes an arc, so you don't need to go TOO small, but definitely several sizes. I still vote for going with OEM, which is one size down (205/60/15). Actually, I vote 225/55/15, which is OEM sport, but either of those would require fender rolling.

Maybe another thing would be to put chalk on the sidewalls, and see how deep it rubs. That would give you an idea of how much smaller tire you need. Also, maybe a 185 or 195 tire would be better. That should fit on the wheel just fine, and would pull it away from the fender a bit.

[77vetteguy]

i accually probably wouldnt have a problem if i didnt have ehbachs on. that helps with the suspension travel though. how much does fender rolling usually cost?