California reflections

[Arde]

I made the drive to Aptos in my 318i, late at night. BAM! About a Megawatt of bright lights are pointed at my car, I am being pulled over. I signal I am pulling over, he blasts over a 10kW audio amplifier to get off highway 1, and make another right into an uphill side road. My wife laments the 400-500 dollars for whatever I did wrong this time. I say, no worries, I did nothing wrong this time.

Young officer get his head and a 20.000 lumen flashlight through the window and orders me to put the car in Park. I tell him it has no Park, it is a manual. He orders me to shift to Neutral then. I shift to Rude instead as Neutral is Wrong and second gear where I have it is Right. My wife shifts to Nervous, but when you are right you have the confidence to be rude and win. He asks the usual "do you know why I pulled you over", I say NO. I think perhaps a 1998 318i that only a surf bum would drive around Santa Cruz means I must have weed or be drunk. He says my rear license plate is no longer reflective. Generally I am more reflective than introspective, so I reflect and offer him to swap front and rear plates. He declines. He asks me to get a new one from the DMV.

He warns me my insurance cards are not the latest, I remind him what matters is the policy number, as he must check it on his laptop. That is why I invented the internet. Anybody with a printer can print a fake one. I did not invent the printer.
He warns us he could slap the 400 fine my wife feared for not having the latest paper proof. What a way to make friends.

Got home and ordered new plates, 48 hours an email says my request is invalid. DMV software developers are sadomasochists. Masochists for working for the DMV. Sadists with the rest of us. Go figure what they did not like.
Went to AAA and filled a paper form at their DMV counter. The lady asks me if I wear vanity plates. One look at the way I am dressed and she could have obviated the question on vanity. She gives me new plates with a new number. Bummer, I bought the car from a Carl Nelson customer in 2008 and when I was starting to remember half the letters back to square one. I asked her if she could print the old plate for me. Nope, I should have invented a plate printer.

I put the new plates, in the front a license frame from Minnesota, where the first owner bought the car. I removed that frame to finally feel like a Californian. The rear plate frame reads "KPBS donor". I am a fraud, the first owner donated to KPBS, not me. But if she donated again to KPBS with the proceeds of selling me the car, I may be technically a donor. To be safe I remove that frame. The curse of going against public radio is worse than stealing lava rocks from Hawaii.

Love California, one day I should run for local office.

 

[Stan]

or just run..

 

[CSteve]

We should start a "Funny Car Story of the Day" post. Arde, you were first with a hard-to-top tale. Thanks for the laughs.

 

[Arde]

Last week I made that same journey with the E39 M5, no sure why. Put about 160 miles around the area. The fun part is the 20 twisty miles each way over HWY 17, where I feel like I am in Italy. I was doing about x0 MPH sustained, and dealing with other cars that invariably taunt me and my sleeper sedan. Where is that young officer when I get taunted? Getting donuts?

Yesterday we load the M5 to repeat the trip, the car beeps its defective tire warning. It measures the rotational speed of the wheels and if one is faster than calibrated, it must have shrunk due to lost air or damage. I drive slowly to the gas station and re-inflate the tire from almost no pressure... I cross to the second gas station across the street, the one that charges for air but has flat tire repair. (The third station in the intersection is lame but there is a good Humus and Baba Ganoush next to it). No fourth gas station, that would be too much.

The mechanic stops everything to jack up my car and look for a nail. He shows me a portion of the inner side of that hugely wide tire has no rubber left, so I am looking at steel or whatever is behind the rubber. No wonder the air comes out. The car is so low and the tires so wide that I never realized the rears were being so unevenly worn that the rubber was gone. I think my HWY 17 return could have been wild. But then again, I once bought a Kaballah wheel amulet in Chesky Krumlov that presumably protects you on the roads, Stan laughed then, but that amulet is batting 1.000.

To buy 4 new Michelins for the M5 I may apply for a Covid relief loan, as I hear the government has unspent money there. In the application I state a very direct rationale. Now that two agencies concluded Covid came from a lab and not from jumping species, and given that there are more labs in the world than jumping species, another virus is likely to occur (Here I name drop Bill Gates), therefore my plan is to keep my oxymeter and whenever my O2% drops to 95% I jump on the M5 and drive myself to the ER without losing time with ambulances.

Anyway, the question I have for the agencies is serious, forget Covid, why does a really wide tire wear faster, when I spread the weight of the car over a wide tire, the pressure at any point should be lower, therefore the friction driven wear should be lower.
And the followup is why do the rears wear more than the front when the bulk of the braking is the front. Perhaps because we accelerate many more times than we brake? A mystery.

And finally, should I have paid or tipped the mechanic? I feel bad he gave me life saving information, yet I was so cheap that because he did not repair it I did not pay.

 

[Aussiecsi]

I never knew you invented the internet Arde ....impressive ! ....Al Gore told me he did .

 

[sfdon]

Al Gore didn’t get a patent. Arde did.

 

[JFENG]

why do the rears wear more than the front

BMW sets up your rear suspension with more negative camber, which means much faster wear on the inner part of the tire. In return you receive much better rear cornering grip (less chance of oversteer). Your wide tires are probably designed to trade away long life for better grip. Finally, your car is too powerful, and scrubs those poor rear tires more than you realize.

 

[sfdon]

“And finally, should I have paid or tipped the mechanic? I feel bad he gave me life saving information, yet I was so cheap that because he did not repair it I did not pay”

Arde?

 

[bavbob]

I had the issue with my 635 but did not know it. I attended a Turner Motorsport clinic and was amazed to see the steel belts popping through on the inner portion of my wheels in the back. I was told a confounding factor other than camber was worn subframe bushings. PIA to change but done with Powerflex.

I was stopped in Weschester NY in my 2003 Acura, my dad's car, originally a NY car with aftermarket windows tinted to the max. Actually not pulled over, but after 2 miles of being followed, I pulled myself over. "why did you pull over?" Well you were gonna do it eventually so I thought I would get it over with. "do you know why I pulled you over?" Actually no! "Well you have snow covering your front plate" Oh the horror I thought to myself. He asked for my license etc and then said "you were not speeding but you seem to be in a hurry". Well, the Patriots have a playoff game I want to watch. He just handed me my license, walked away and said " the Giants are gonna take it this year"........and they did.

 

[JFENG]

why do the rears wear more than the front

If your tires do not have asymmetrical inside vs outside tread, you can flip them on your rims to move the inner edge to the outside and get way more life out of them. Typically, the only downside is slightly odd handling for a few miles, ( 200 miles might be enough).

My skinny vintage Alfa race ties cost >$400 each (175/70-15), so I do this to get 40% more use out of them.

 

[lip277]

BMW sedans are known to wear the inside of the rears out.
I am not an expert but have been told (by several tire shops) that it is the way the geometry is set up for the rear suspensions and a known situation for these cars (E38/E39).
I guess my Porsche felt left out so it does that as well. LOL

I currently have an E38 ('01 740iL) with ~240k on the clock now and had an earlier one ('95 740i) that had 225k when I let it go. When I got my first one (the 95), a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S were ~$2,200 a set (back in 2003 or so). The last set of tires I purchased (the latest flavor of the same Mich PS A/S) were about $950 - about a year ago if I recall correctly. The inside rears are where they wear out the first. A couple of times, I have been able to 'just' get new rears and run the fronts a fair bit longer.
I agree that you can swap them from left to right - but by that point, the $$ and effort to get a bit more life out of them is kind of a point of diminishing return (IMO) as the tires are ~75% used and... the time and $$ to get the remaining life out of the tires are... kind of not there for me. I drive a fair bit, so the time that buys me is not that great. For someone who doesn't drive their car as much - the calendar benefit may last longer so it may be worth it to them more than me.

I have learned to keep an eye on the rear of all my German cars and ... go from there.

FYI - When I first got my 997, I didn't really pay attention to the insides of the rear tires (like I knew to do on my BMW's).
One time, walking up to the 997 - I approached the car from the rear and up a bit of a hill with the sun coming in from over my shoulder (was a picture perfect presentation of the rear bumper, exhaust and underside of the rear of the car. I saw the inside of each tire was bright showing all sorts of fabric belt as the tread there was ALL gone. The outside of the tires looked fine. The inside - no. NO!!!
I was, uh.... lucky I didn't have a flat (or even an accident). I drove the car straight home and ordered new tires.
FYI - I installed Hankook Ventus V12 on the 911 and have had good luck with those. A nice tire for a bit less than the Michelin's - albeit a summer tire compared to the all seasons that I need on the sedans.

Good luck...

 

[coupe2800cs]

I made the drive to Aptos in my 318i, late at night. BAM! About a Megawatt of bright lights are pointed at my car, I am being pulled over. I signal I am pulling over, he blasts over a 10kW audio amplifier to get off highway 1, and make another right into an uphill side road. My wife laments the 400-500 dollars for whatever I did wrong this time. I say, no worries, I did nothing wrong this time.

Young officer get his head and a 20.000 lumen flashlight through the window and orders me to put the car in Park. I tell him it has no Park, it is a manual. He orders me to shift to Neutral then. I shift to Rude instead as Neutral is Wrong and second gear where I have it is Right. My wife shifts to Nervous, but when you are right you have the confidence to be rude and win. He asks the usual "do you know why I pulled you over", I say NO. I think perhaps a 1998 318i that only a surf bum would drive around Santa Cruz means I must have weed or be drunk. He says my rear license plate is no longer reflective. Generally I am more reflective than introspective, so I reflect and offer him to swap front and rear plates. He declines. He asks me to get a new one from the DMV.

He warns me my insurance cards are not the latest, I remind him what matters is the policy number, as he must check it on his laptop. That is why I invented the internet. Anybody with a printer can print a fake one. I did not invent the printer.
He warns us he could slap the 400 fine my wife feared for not having the latest paper proof. What a way to make friends.

Got home and ordered new plates, 48 hours an email says my request is invalid. DMV software developers are sadomasochists. Masochists for working for the DMV. Sadists with the rest of us. Go figure what they did not like.
Went to AAA and filled a paper form at their DMV counter. The lady asks me if I wear vanity plates. One look at the way I am dressed and she could have obviated the question on vanity. She gives me new plates with a new number. Bummer, I bought the car from a Carl Nelson customer in 2008 and when I was starting to remember half the letters back to square one. I asked her if she could print the old plate for me. Nope, I should have invented a plate printer.

I put the new plates, in the front a license frame from Minnesota, where the first owner bought the car. I removed that frame to finally feel like a Californian. The rear plate frame reads "KPBS donor". I am a fraud, the first owner donated to KPBS, not me. But if she donated again to KPBS with the proceeds of selling me the car, I may be technically a donor. To be safe I remove that frame. The curse of going against public radio is worse than stealing lava rocks from Hawaii.

Love California, one day I should run for local office.

Are the new black plates reflective....? lol...

 

[Arde]

Well I did install brand new Michellins and it was worth every penny... The car feels superb, so much so that I am thinking of replacing the front bumper and the oxidized headlights. Life is short, and can be even shorter if you do not replace tires...

Thanks for the explanation on the rear inner wear, makes sense.

I have two more California stories, one about a mysterious water leak in my driveway and dealing with the water company, and another on trying to get my street repaved or patched up after the damage done by the winter rains... I may join a political campaign just to pretend I can change things.

 

[Arde]

“And finally, should I have paid or tipped the mechanic? I feel bad he gave me life saving information, yet I was so cheap that because he did not repair it I did not pay”

Arde?

Ok, how do I fix it? I can go tip him, or better yet bring him some work. Perhaps caring for the Cabrio, not BMWs yet, lest he installs a non German hose somewhere and then get tarred and feathered when SFDon finds it...

 

[Arde]

I never knew you invented the internet Arde ....impressive ! ....Al Gore told me he did .

Nah, it was Chuck Norris and me.

 

[Oldbmwcoupes]

Additionally, the lower the car the more negative camber. I’ve installed camber adjustments in my 635 rear subframe. Lower suspension settings and 10” rear alpina wheels were too much to not invest in this relatively simple fix. There use to be various brands selling different kits. Kmac is one brand perhaps? It’s been a while so I can’t exactly recall the manufacturer. However I do recall that we welded certain pieces to the subframe unlike cheaper versions that don’t require that

 

[Arde]

My 635 wears tires very evenly, and I happy with the handling. The only non-stock items are Dinan sway bars and Dinan valved Bilsteins, plus the Hartge rims. I loved doing highway in that car and I am using it more every day. I think in stock form nothing is adjustable in mine.

 

[Krzysztof]

In the E30 touring I had my tires were wearing more or less evenly till the time I went for geometry. The front is adjustable but rear.

BMW sells eccentric rear rubber bushings mounted into rear rocker arms but the adjustment is a pain, so many shops is welding metal worm washers to adjust the rear angles.

They did the same for my E30 and as a result car was driving great but the rear tires started to worn more from the inside.

It is painful to see a lot of rubber from the outside but almost nothing from the inside forcing to replace at least the rear pair but if we would like to vitness "Sheer Driving Pleasure".

 

[bluecoupe30!]

My E39 Touring ran through its Michelins at an amazing rate. Owners manual said to NOT move rears to fronts, fronts to rears. What they did not say is that if you do swap front for rear and rear for front, is that every other manufacturer believes (OK, I may not be aware of what EVERY manufacturer recommends...but) this can help get more life from the tires! One year, rears really wore quickly and then I found out that the expensive-to-replace rear subframe bushings were so worn, could not align rear wheels. Expensive car....But I still miss it

 

[JFENG]

painful to see a lot of rubber from the outside but almost nothing from the inside

This is a compromise that BMW made between $$ and better/safer handling at the limit for the average driver. I think it’s the right decision for someone who buys a BMW, but not for a Buick/Camey owner.

You will get even wear if you drive like a racer, but that isn’t appropriate for public roadways.

The 2nd solution, as mentioned by OBC and Krzysztof is adding adjustable to even out the wear, but understand this gives up grip at the limit. Of, flip the rear tires on the rim every 6k miles.