Steering, tramlineing problem solved!

Firstly, what a lovely car you have, secondly, you'd be surprised at how much of a difference tyre pressures can make. I work in a garage and from my experience, tyres account for a lot of the safety and handling characteristics of the car.

It is recommended you check tyre pressures weekly. You'd be surprised how 'overlooked' an item tyres are. With only 2mm of tread left (recommended they are changed when they get this low though the legal limit is 1.6mm) how much your stopping distance can be reduced (could be the difference between hitting another car or pedestrian or just missing them) But also the pressure can affect braking and handling adversley too as well as premature tyre wear.

If the pressures are too low, the outer walls of the tyre take more of the weight of the car, which is greatly magnified during cornering and can result in damage of the side wall, which can weaken it and in extreme cases causing the tread to effectivley 'strip' clean off the tyre walls. (This happened to my cousin at 90mph on the motorway on the front tyre! I asked her when she last had a new tyre and when she'd checked the pressures, she said the tyre was 6 months old and she'd never checked them! She took the remains to the tyre fitter and he said the tyre walls were cracked where they'd been under inflated causing the tread to come off completely at high speed)

If the pressures are too high, only the centre section of the tryre will make true contact with the road, that could reduce grip by 50% but also they will wear in half the time.

I know it sounds like I'm a little patronising but I don't think enough people are told these important facts until it's too late, so I'm putting that right now!

Tyres will save your life long before a seatbelt, ABS, airbags etc. If looked after properly, you may not need these secondary safety features. Tyres are the primary safety feature on ANY motor vehicle and should be inspected weekly. Plus you'll save money on tyres as well as better fuel economy at the right pressures too!

You have been told!

Regards

Mike

This tramlining that you are all experiencing is most probably due to incorrect wheel alignment.  As some of you have stated you have had laser alignment conducted and although this sounds really good it does your BMW no good at all. 

You need to take your vehicles to specialist alignment centres which have "Hunter" or equivalent type equipment.  The reason is that only these centres will be able to adjust the negative cambering on the rear wheels.  Once this is done you will be amazed and marvel at the transformation in your vehicles handling characteristics.  

The KDS alignment done at BMW is also manufactured by the Hunter company.

http://www.pro-align.co.uk/products/wheelaligners/pswheelali gners.htm

I have been having similar issues; last weekend gave the car a good going over & noticed that some little pikey 7w@ had stolen the dust caps - £3.49 for the alluminium caps - why bother nicking  Kids I presume!

Looked in the book to find what the correct pressure should be and took it to a local petrol station to check the pressures. Low and behold the to front tyres were different pressures; 1.7bar and 1.9 - did they let the tyres down aswell - who knows  

Whilst checking the pressures also noted the outside edge of the front tyres were BALD  so god knows how long they'd been a "litte" low; mind you the fronts have done 50K+ miles so its about time they were changed!

Quick call to e-tyres.co.uk and new tyres been fitted tomorrow:

235/45/17/Y: Dunlop SP2000E - £105 fitted

Bill- wrote: I'm careful about my pressures but cant quite find the best setting what pressures do you run540 pls I normally follow the doorpost instructions on my car

After finding that the tyres were both below 2.0 bar I inflated them to the the recommended pressure:

Unladen

• Front: 2.5 bar 
• Rear: 2.8 bar

The car handles much better than it has done for the last couple of months!

And finally.....

540 V8 wrote: secondly, you'd be surprised at how much of a difference tyre pressures can make. I work in a garage and from my experience, tyres account for a lot of the safety and handling characteristics of the car. It is recommended you check tyre pressures weekly.

Point taken; for the sake of 20pence I will be keeping an eye on my tyre pressures. . . . .

Must say this thread has been good to read. My 530d Sport (stock 17's) seems to tramline alot. Sometimes it seems more obvious than others (especially under braking) but more than likely as I also drive a Cooper S on run flats that does it to but then other times in a mk5 Golf which doesn't so it gets highlighted all the more!

In fact I posted recently about this on the forum at www.bmw5.co.uk but dismissed tyre pressures having "recently" done them - better check again so thanks for the reminder.

Be interested also to hear more of the issues with the Dunlop tyres as they are the ones I have (in fact, with about 7mm left funnily enough).

Hummmmmmmmmmmm.....

Too late now - tyres are on.....

I'd not had any issues with the others.....the fella said they were in generally good nick other that the baldness on the edge - he reckons I need it tracking.....

I'll keep a close eye on them from now on & see what happens; if they do 'out of round' in the next couple of months I think I'll complain to Dunlop and see what they say - they won't cough up for new ones I know but at least I can give em greif.......

The fella said it'd cost me £35 for full 4 wheel laser alignment - is that a good price?

Jeff

Where did you get the 544 badge?

Geoff (E39 - 540!)