My good friend bought a certified pre-owned 98 M3 from Open Road BMW in Edison, NJ. Later he got into an accident, and the insurance company paid for 4 new tyres and 2 new wheels. He noticed afterwards that the car and steering wheel vibrated. Upon bringing the car back in, they rotated the wheels, which elimated the noise. The OEM setup is as follows:

Fronts (spare): 225/45/17
Rears: 245/40/17

They swapped the Right Rear with the Left Front, in effect creating stagger, and the tendecy to go left (bigger circumferences on the Right side).

My friend (he's more clueless than me obviously) didn't notice the problem til he was replacing the tyres and it was the service manager of the tyre replacement dealer who told him that something was f@#$ed up!.

He took it back to Open Road BMW dealer, who claimed that there can be no damage to the diff and the setup, although not ideal, would not be noticed by 99% of the drivers out there. (Probably not untrue). But all they would acknowledge would be that they would re-rotated Right Front with the Left Rear, and that no damage could have resulted.

I don't know if this is true, and if not, what should I do next? Should I contact BMW directly and ask them. Seems pretty negligent to me to do a diagonal swap like that in the first place. I like BMW's but there is something about the brand that I just don't like. Dealers of course can't usually be trusted more than you can throw an anvil, regardless of the marquee.

Any thoughts?

 

You can go and ask Ray i think that's his name.
I think Ray is the head mech. at Open Road BMW over there.