Are my DPE rims too big for my 545i?

[tom95765]

I just bought a 2004 BMW 545i from Texas and drove it back home to northern California. It has 20" DPE S-20 Signature wheels (9" wide in front & 10" wide in the rear) on it that look very nice, however when I fully load the car with 4 people it souneds like its bottoming out or scrapping. On the drive to Monday's 49ers game, the rear tires must have scraped the inner part of the car at least 60-70 times to and from the game (from Sacramento). The car probably had no issues in Texas since they have smooth roads, but here in CA the roads are terrible in certain stretches. Also, when making a semi-sharp right hand turn into the grocery store at 10mph, the front tires scrape. I just got a flat front right tire because of this (at least I think it was because of this). After shopping, I got back on the freeway and that's when I got the flat tire warning form the computer. It was a slow leak (maybe from dasmage over time) -- America's Tire Co removed the tire and showed me how the radials were torn from the inside of the tire. To make a long story short, I'm afraid my rims are too big and I might easily get a sudden blowout next time on the freeway and lose control of the car. Is there any way to fix the problem besides getting smaller rims? If not, then these nice DPEs are going to have to go up for sale.

I would attach a picture of the car and rims, but this is my first post ever and I haven't figured out how to attach files yet.

Thanks,
Tom

[Eddy@ApexRaceParts]

it has nothing to do with smooth roads, it has to to with wheel/tire clearance in the fenders.

Wheel diameter (20") and wheel width (9" and 10") are only 2 variables and they tell you very little about fitment. DPE wheels are custom. The issue here is what offset (backspacing) your wheels are. And what tire size is being run on the car. you can put many different sized tires onto the same wheel and some fit better then others.

Your best bet being new here would be to post links to photos of your car. a side profile and angles that show how close the tire is to the front and rear fender. From this we could tell you "YEP they'll never fit right" or if you just need a different tire size or a fender roll.

you can't attach pictures and you can't embed photos. but you can post a non-working link, and then one of us can embed them here.

[tom95765]

Here are the tires sizes...

Front: P245/35R20
Rears: P275/30/R20

I called DPE to ask the the offset, but they said they are custom rims and would need an invoice number which I cannot access since the car was a trade-in at a dealership, so I have no history on the rims. Can I measure the offset or take the wheels somewhere to get them measured?

How do I post a picture link? Here is a couple links (below) to the pictures of the car and rims I have on myspace, but not sure that is going to work here. Anyways, thanks for the feedback so far.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=151195119&albumID=835944&imageID=40372591

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=151195119&albumID=835944&imageID=40372594

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=151195119&albumID=835944&imageID=40372596

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=151195119&albumID=835944&imageID=40372600