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Thread: Tires and Rims for my E39

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Location
    San Jose, Costa Rica
    Posts
    2
    My Cars
    2002 525

    Tires and Rims for my E39

    Hi. I am new to this site and just bought a sweet e39 after owning a Defender for a number of years.


    So I have decided to make a couple changes to the car. First is to change the wheel size and the second is to drop the suspension an inch or two. The car is in perfect shape but just a little too conservative. Like something you might see a dentist drive. That was not intended to be disparaging, it's just my old dentist used to drive the same car and he was really conservative.


    Right now the car has Style 31 rims (15x7; ET20). Boring. And fugly.


    I want to upgrade these to 16 or 17 inch rims.


    So I purchased a used set of Style 39 rims (17x7.5 and 17x8.5; ET41).
    I thought that since the width and diameter were ok, they would fit. I blame my Defender mentality, whereby anything metal, with the correct diameter and vaguely round in shape would fit. Big mistake. Because I've read now that the hub size and offset is different.


    So my question...


    How to I address this? Bore the hub? Add spacers? If so, what size? I really don't want to have to buy other wheels, if possible. And if I buy other wheels, I will run into the same issues


    Also, when I lower the car by an inch or two, how will that impact fitment of these wheels. The tires I am looking at are 225 45 in the front and 245 45 in the rear. Should I lower the car first?


    Thanks
    Last edited by Achtungh; 08-02-2016 at 12:04 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Jersey City, NJ
    Posts
    2,038
    My Cars
    2013 X5 35i M-Sport
    Congrats on the purchase. For whatever reason, BMW made the E39 and E53? X5 different hubs than the rest of the line up. The bore size for our wheels needs to be 74.1mm. You can either get the wheels bored and add spacers to provide correct offset or you can get adapter spacers and avoid altering the wheels themselves. You'll need to get the offset down to 20mm or so.

    You shouldn't run into any problems lowering the car that much.
    Last edited by RyansBMW; 08-02-2016 at 12:29 PM.

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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Location
    San Jose, Costa Rica
    Posts
    2
    My Cars
    2002 525
    Quote Originally Posted by RyansBMW View Post
    Congrats on the purchase. For whatever reason, BMW made the E39 and E53? X5 different hubs than the rest of the line up. The bore size for our wheels needs to be 74.1mm. You can either get the wheels bored and add spacers to provide correct offset or you can get adapter spacers and avoid altering the wheels themselves. You'll need to get the offset down to 20mm or so.

    You shouldn't run into any problems lowering the car that much.



    That is great info. Thanks.

    So to get the offset down to +-20mm, I would need a spacer of 20mm? 41-20=21?

    Thanks again for the info.

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