Apr 222008
 

New Shoes

I bought a 2001 530 back in September. BMW made the E39 5 Series from 1997 through 2003. It is a fantastic mix of comfort and performance, and in the opinion of many the last “classic” body style before the 5 Series design went in a very different, modernistic direction. Here’s how Edmunds described the car in 2001 when it named the 530 the “Best Midsize Sedan Over $30,000:” “Can the company that creates ultimate driving machines offer supreme luxury and a compliant ride while creating a vehicle that goes, stops and turns with the best sporting sedans on the market? The answer is yes.” http://www.edmunds.com/bmw/5-series/2001/?sub=sedan

I took my time, since demand is strong for well kept E39s and I wanted a manual transmission, which is much scarcer than automatic. Also wanted the sports package, which came with enhanced suspension, tires and a few other goodies.

My car had low miles but the previous owner was not a car guy, some things had been neglected. Dings, no fluids had been changed except oil, rims all curbed up and never cleaned, that sort of thing. I’ve been bringing the car back up to code as time and budget allows.

Latest project was new rims and tires. The car has the original rubber on it when I bought, so first thing I did was have the rims reconditioned to make presentable. It worked well, but they were never coming all the way back. So I put snow tires on them to get through winter. (Of course, after I did so DC had a very mild one with almost no snow).

For the past two months I’ve been looking forward to putting new rims and performance tires back on the car. The options out there are almost endless, and it took me a while to decide on which way to go. It’s like a lot of things these days — it’s easy to go way overboard. This car is for street use only so I was looking for a good price to quality balance. No need for $250 tires and forged rims that can easily run $800-900 per.

I eventually decided to go with 18 inch Monet New Age rims with Sumitomo HTR Z III tires, 245×40 all around. These tires got a great review from Tirerack and are priced well below comparable summer tires:http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=93

It took me a while to find a rim I liked for the car. I wanted something a little different but not too out there, from a company that had been around a while. Monet has a wide variety, including a replica that looked almost identical to my stock wheels, which I like a lot. I decided to go with what they call the New Age rim:

It’s already been a new age of handling with the snows off the car. Now I’m set on this front until around Thanksgiving. But the project continues…

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  4 Responses to “New Shoes for the 530”

  1. You have a good weblog , i think i will check your weblog some days for every week .

  2. Alen — thanks for compliment. Please visit often, and share your thoughts on the posts you find interesting.

  3. […] So first up was a vibration at highway speeds. In a prior post I described buying new rims and tires for the car. I was very psyched to give the car this refresh. The previous owner hadn’t bothered to clean or maintain the rims properly, and I needed to get my snows off the car for better handling: http://cparente.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/new-shoes-for-the-530/ […]

  4. I just did a similar car and the owner wants to go with 19″ and it came out very nice. They were also Monet wheels and for the money it’s a great option that provides a great look. I have a picture of the BMW in the gallery if you want to check it out. :)

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