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[TRZ06]

I got my OEM 19's and RE-11's put on this morning. The RE-11's have a very stiff sidewall compared to the PS2's

So far here is what I have noticed as compared to the OEM 18" w/ PS2's after about 30 miles

RIDE: Definitely not as plush of a ride, but not rough in a bad way, better road feel. EDC in Normal mode equals Sport mode on the 18"s w/ PS2's (due to both shorter side walls and stiffer side walls)

BALANCE: Car feels more stable and balanced with less vibration transmitting to the steering wheel. Bridgestone has great QC and their quality is TOP NOTCH.

HANDLING: This will be a later review, as I want to break the molding compound off and let the tires mold to the suspension before I push them hard. I will say though that turn-in is crisper. There is a little squirminess during any abrupt maneuvers but that is to be expected of any brand new tire with full tread. They do feel a lot better than I remember the PS2's feeling though when brand new.

Thanks to Tisher BMW for the great deal on the wheels and to Sonic Motorsports for the awesome mount and balance job and for not scraping the wheels getting the RE-11's on due to their very stiff side wall.

[Lemans_Blue_M]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

I got my OEM 19's and RE-11's put on this morning. The RE-11's have a very stiff sidewall compared to the PS2's

So far here is what I have noticed as compared to the OEM 18" w/ PS2's after about 30 miles

RIDE: Definitely not as plush of a ride, but not rough in a bad way, better road feel. EDC in Normal mode equals Sport mode on the 18"s w/ PS2's (due to both shorter side walls and stiffer side walls)

BALANCE: Car feels more stable and balanced with less vibration transmitting to the steering wheel. Bridgestone has great QC and their quality is TOP NOTCH.

HANDLING: This will be a later review, as I want to break the molding compound off and let the tires mold to the suspension before I push them hard. I will say though that turn-in is crisper. There is a little squirminess during any abrupt maneuvers but that is to be expected of any brand new tire with full tread. They do feel a lot better than I remember the PS2's feeling though when brand new.

Thanks to Tisher BMW for the great deal on the wheels and to Sonic Motorsports for the awesome mount and balance job and for not scraping the wheels getting the RE-11's on due to their very stiff side wall.

Very Interesting...

Thanks for taking the time to write a detailed review.

[stylinexpat]

Does the car perform better with the 18" wheels or 19" wheels?

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by stylinexpat

Does the car perform better with the 18" wheels or 19" wheels?

Define "perform"?

My top review is all I have thus far, I need more miles on them before I really put them thru their paces.

I am overall happier with them over the 18" and PS2's. It is hard to talk about just 18 vs 19 because I didn't just change the wheels, but the tires too.

As I said above my current set-up has a stiffer, firmer ride. EDC "Sport mode" with the stock 18's and the PS2 feels the same as "Normal mode" with the 19's and the RE-11's

Obviously the RE-11's grip better as they are a step up the performance latter category

[Nawaaz]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

Define "perform"?

My top review is all I have thus far, I need more miles on them before I really put them thru their paces.

I am overall happier with them over the 18" and PS2's. It is hard to talk about just 18 vs 19 because I didn't just change the wheels, but the tires too.

As I said above my current set-up has a stiffer, firmer ride. EDC "Sport mode" with the stock 18's and the PS2 feels the same as "Normal mode" with the 19's and the RE-11's

Obviously the RE-11's grip better as they are a step up the performance latter category

I like my stock 18's best.

[stylinexpat]

Originally Posted by Nawaaz

I like my stock 18's best.

This is what I was trying to find out. I had wanted to know if people found that they were getting better performance with their 18" wheels and tires than their 19" provided one had the same tires on them.

I feel that the 19" wheels are a bit on the big and heavy side

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by stylinexpat

This is what I was trying to find out. I had wanted to know if people found that they were getting better performance with their 18" wheels and tires than their 19" provided one had the same tires on them.

I feel that the 19" wheels are a bit on the big and heavy side

I think the performance difference is negotiable between the 18" vs 19", the biggest difference comes from tire changes. I can tell you the RE-11 is a BIG improvement over the PS2's.

I took some on-ramps this morning and I will tell you on brand new tread the PS2's side walls rolled over and scrubbed causing a huge grip decrease, while the RE-11's they just held and gripped. The PS2's took about 4K miles before they wouldn't scrub anymore.

IMO the 18" offer better ride quality, the 19" provide better performance as the turn-in is crisper and there is less side wall flex. There is a HUGE amount of side wall on the stock 18's for a sports oriented car.

I know a lot of people on these boards disagree with this but, I think the 19's perform better. There was even an article recently where Edmunds said the 19's provide a slight performance increase but at the cost of ride quality.

Also I believe it has been proven that the stock 19" wheels are actually slightly lighter than the stock 18"s

Again, this is just my opinion, but what what I have personally seen and felt, it holds true.

[MrHarris]

I think I'll be going with the RE-11's for my next set of tires. Good to hear their QC is good, I'm a little disappointed with Nitto's QC

[stylinexpat]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

I think the performance difference is negotiable between the 18" vs 19", the biggest difference comes from tire changes. I can tell you the RE-11 is a BIG improvement over the PS2's.

I took some on-ramps this morning and I will tell you on brand new tread the PS2's side walls rolled over and scrubbed causing a huge grip decrease, while the RE-11's they just held and gripped. The PS2's took about 4K miles before they wouldn't scrub anymore.

IMO the 18" offer better ride quality, the 19" provide better performance as the turn-in is crisper and there is less side wall flex. There is a HUGE amount of side wall on the stock 18's for a sports oriented car.

I know a lot of people on these boards disagree with this but, I think the 19's perform better. There was even an article recently where Edmunds said the 19's provide a slight performance increase but at the cost of ride quality.

Also I believe it has been proven that the stock 19" wheels are actually slightly lighter than the stock 18"s

Again, this is just my opinion, but what what I have personally seen and felt, it holds true.

I don't see why one can't put tires with the same height on 18" wheels as on the 19" wheels. I think 265-285 35 18 on the car should be good especially with RE-11's on there.

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by stylinexpat

I don't see why one can't put tires with the same height on 18" wheels as on the 19" wheels. I think 265-285 35 18 on the car should be good especially with RE-11's on there.

Because then you are playing with the overall diameter of the tire, which then alters other things.

That is why the only change going from a 18" to 19" is a .5 difference in side wall series.

the 18 sizes are 245/40/18 and 265/40/18

and the 19's are 245/35/19 and 265/35/19

if you use a tire calculator, you will see that they have virtually the same specs with the exception of side wall height.

[chris719]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

I took some on-ramps this morning and I will tell you on brand new tread the PS2's side walls rolled over and scrubbed causing a huge grip decrease, while the RE-11's they just held and gripped. The PS2's took about 4K miles before they wouldn't scrub anymore.

IMO the 18" offer better ride quality, the 19" provide better performance as the turn-in is crisper and there is less side wall flex. There is a HUGE amount of side wall on the stock 18's for a sports oriented car.

I know a lot of people on these boards disagree with this but, I think the 19's perform better. There was even an article recently where Edmunds said the 19's provide a slight performance increase but at the cost of ride quality.

Also I believe it has been proven that the stock 19" wheels are actually slightly lighter than the stock 18"s

Again, this is just my opinion, but what what I have personally seen and felt, it holds true.

PS2 is a GT-ish tire, it has good grip but also good ride quality and poor sidewall stiffness. Take a look at what the M3 GT4 car and the ALMS cars are running... it isn't super-low profile rubber. RE-11 and the other extreme performance category tires have much stiffer sidewalls.

[JAJ]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

Also I believe it has been proven that the stock 19" wheels are actually slightly lighter than the stock 18"s

The RE-11's weigh about 4 pounds (each) more than PS2's so small differences in wheel weight are irrelevant.

I had RE-01R's, the RE-11 predecessor. They were great initially but got really slippery once they'd been heat cycled a few times. I'm curious to see how the RE-11's perform in the long run.

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by JAJ

The RE-11's weigh about 4 pounds (each) more than PS2's so small differences in wheel weight are irrelevant.

I had RE-01R's, the RE-11 predecessor. They were great initially but got really slippery once they'd been heat cycled a few times. I'm curious to see how the RE-11's perform in the long run.

I had the RE-01R's on my 335i as well. They were a great tire, and you are right, they did tend to get greasy when really hot. However I don't remember losing grip forever when heat cycled, just when they got hot they got greasy, bring the temp. back down and they would stick again.

I don't have enough miles or time on the RE-11's to know if they cured that. That was my one and only complaint about the RE-01R's, other than that I loved them.

Yes, the RE-11's do weigh a little more then the PS2's, they have to in order to have the increased side wall stiffness. I don't have an issue with the weight of the tires. I was just responding to stylinexpat's post about wheel weights.
It was proven somewhere that the OEM 19" wheels weigh slightly less then the OEM 18's.

But yeah, when you add wheels and tires together the weights are negligible.

[TRZ06]

I found the quote from Edmunds.....

"Handling Skidpad: .90g Slalom: 70.0 mph
These numbers are both lower than our previous test car which was fitted with the optional 19-inch Michelin Pilot Sport rubber (our car has 18-inch wheels). We also tested the M Dynamic stability control mode which produced .87g on the skidpad and a 69.4-mph slalom speed."

"And the wheels: He chose 18s because he likes the way the look. "They've got dish," says Oldham. But they don't have dish. Not any that matters anyway. He pointed out that they do, however, cost less -- the 19s are a $1,200 option. But according to the hairsplitting M3 nerds on M3 post.com the 19s (with tires) actually weigh less.

Thing is, they might just be worth it. I think they look better and the last M3 sedan we tested with 19s outhandled our car."



These are 2 blog entries from the following link.

http://blogs.edmunds.com/roadtests/V...s/2009-bmw-m3/

[stylinexpat]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

I found the quote from Edmunds.....

"Handling Skidpad: .90g Slalom: 70.0 mph
These numbers are both lower than our previous test car which was fitted with the optional 19-inch Michelin Pilot Sport rubber (our car has 18-inch wheels). We also tested the M Dynamic stability control mode which produced .87g on the skidpad and a 69.4-mph slalom speed."

"And the wheels: He chose 18s because he likes the way the look. "They've got dish," says Oldham. But they don't have dish. Not any that matters anyway. He pointed out that they do, however, cost less -- the 19s are a $1,200 option. But according to the hairsplitting M3 nerds on M3 post.com the 19s (with tires) actually weigh less.

Thing is, they might just be worth it. I think they look better and the last M3 sedan we tested with 19s outhandled our car."



These are 2 blog entries from the following link.

http://blogs.edmunds.com/roadtests/V...s/2009-bmw-m3/

I'm sure that there are quite a bit of lightweight 18" wheels out there compared to the heavy stock 18" wheels from BMW. This is what I am trying to compare. The reason I was asking was because I was thinking of replacing my stock 19" wheels with some lightweight 18" after market wheels.

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by stylinexpat

I'm sure that there are quite a bit of lightweight 18" wheels out there compared to the heavy stock 18" wheels from BMW. This is what I am trying to compare. The reason I was asking was because I was thinking of replacing my stock 19" wheels with some lightweight 18" after market wheels.

Oh, no doubt there are lighter aftermarket 18's.

I was comparing OEM's

[Trier Germany]

Do you plan on tracking your car? Im really interested to see how they perform and how much abuse they can take. How close in performance do thse compare to Advan A048 or toyo r888?

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by Trier Germany

Do you plan on tracking your car? Im really interested to see how they perform and how much abuse they can take. How close in performance do thse compare to Advan A048 or toyo r888?

No, no tracking here, It's my daily driver. I have had no experience with either of those other 2 tires you have listed, sorry.

[boostedtwin]

For the 18" guys, there's also an option with the Nitto NT05 245/40 - 285/35. Supposed to be a very good tire.

[STALKER]

Originally Posted by Trier Germany

Do you plan on tracking your car? Im really interested to see how they perform and how much abuse they can take. How close in performance do thse compare to Advan A048 or toyo r888?

Those are R compounds, its going to be hard to compare.
That being said, I ran Yoko Advan AD07s for street and track for a bit on my e46 M3, and it was a great track tire if you did not want to swap tires or run a R compound.

[Trier Germany]

Originally Posted by STALKER

Those are R compounds, its going to be hard to compare.
That being said, I ran Yoko Advan AD07s for street and track for a bit on my e46 M3, and it was a great track tire if you did not want to swap tires or run a R compound.

How much abuse can the Yokohama Advan Ad07 can take. I was looking into the newr model AD08. The Michelin is a good all around tire street and light track. But I have had good expierence with bridgestone in the past. I ordered my car with 18' for a reason more choice of performance tires. I'll eventually get a nice set of 19" for day to day use. But i don't know if I want to run a semi slick. Since i have to drive to get to the ring and it is known to rain alot in Germany. How did the AD07 perform in the rain.