I am at the tire shop replacing my right front tire, which caught a nail Tuesday morning, and the tech tells me that I may have about 6 months before I need to replace the rears. That surprises me because I've put only 3500 miles on the tires that were new when I purchased the car (CPO) in September 2011. What I learned from the tech is that in the case of run flats the rear tires last about half as long as the fronts. Perhaps others here knew about this...I didn't...so, I thought I would share this information.
It has nothing to do with RFTs as it is basically a characteristic of rear wheel drive. Every one of the 5 BMWs I've owned has worn the rear tires about twice as fast as the fronts - and this includes both RFTs and go-flats.
I'd find a new tire tech. (I highly recommend Radial Tire Co. in Silver Spring.)
It has nothing to do with RFTs as it is basically a characteristic of rear wheel drive. Every one of the 5 BMWs I've owned has worn the rear tires about twice as fast as the fronts - and this includes both RFTs and go-flats.
I'd find a new tire tech. (I highly recommend Radial Tire Co. in Silver Spring.)
I'm surprised as I've always gotten excellent advice & good service from them over the years. Maybe he meant to say that the RFTs rode harder - which is certainly true.
And 3,500 miles is terrible treadwear as I've averaged 15,000 to 30,000 on BMW rears. I'd recommend buying a good tread wear gauge and tracking it yourself so you won't be surprised again.
I don't buy 3500 miles for the rear RFTs...mine have about that mileage. They still have more than half their life left, and I tend to push them.
I've been using Crawford Tire (a Goodyear shop) in Bethesda the past four years for seasonalchanges to winters and back to summers. Their wheel and tire work is very good and reasonable, as is their maintenance (I actually have them do oil and filter changes between the BMW intervals). But for actual repair work they can be pricey.
I've had 3 BMWs with runflats and the life was more like 20,000 front or back. I've NEVER heard the 1/2 life of the rears to front and it has not been my experience.
I recommend having your alignment checked. On my Z4 my rears went very quickly due to the factory alignment.
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