[MBan]

Hi all,

I will update the thread with proper images once I get tyres installed but I thought I would post some up now as a teaser.

For reference, the wheels are 18 x 8.5 ET 35 on the front and 18 x 9.5 ET 22 on the back, in 'machining and racing hyper black'. There are only two colours available for these wheels in BMW specs. The other colour is black, which I love the look of but is a bit bold for my personal tastes for a street car.

On my own scales, the fronts weigh 7.9kg (17.4Lb) and the rears 8.3kg (18.3Lb).

These pictures were taken when I was test-fitting some tyres - 245 40 on the front and 265 35 on the rear. The rears are fine but the fronts rubbed on the front and rear of the wheel arch liner (outside edge of the tyre). I can't imagine alignment settings would be able to fix rubbing on both sides but in the wheel thread and the great spreadsheet someone made up, lots of people run much more aggressive tyres and offsets than this test.

Happy to hear any suggestions for how to get more aggressive wheel/tyre setups to fit without rubbing but for safety sake I'm going to go with a 235 40 on the front.

My next tyre issue is what to buy. Michelin in Australia only offer one size in 18 inch in their Pilot Sport 4S, which was probably my first pick. Pilot Super Sports aren't available in a 235 40 R18, so they're out too.

Continental Sport Contact 6 aren't available in 18 inch and Goodyear Eagle F1 Super Sport are available in 18 inch but only in stock sizes, which seems like a bit of backward step and I'm not that big on the 'stretched' look.

My options have basically come down to Advan V105 and Bridgestone Potenza S007a. Does anyone have any experience with either? At this stage I'm leaning towards the Advans based on the tyre shop recommendation.

Anyway, time for pictures.