I've always liked the 214's - I had them on my E70 X5, so I've been looking out for a set and these appeared yesterday with matching Michelin tyres all round for a good price.

I'd done a fair bit of research so was fairly confident they would fit.

I had 18" style 368's on when I bought the car which I've never been a fan of...



Anyway, they fitted on fine - this is just after dropping the jack so the suspension hasn't settled yet:



Here you can see how close the fronts are to the strut, which BMW have flattened a little just to make things easier!





Here's the difference between the sizes... interestingly my speedo is now reading a GPS-correct speed at 70mph, and acceleration feels no different.



And here they are on this morning:





F: 20x10 ET40 275/45/20 (X5 size)

R: 20x11 ET37 315/35/20 (X5 size)

Looks great. Acceleration really doesn't feel different? Just hard to imagine for me. I went the other way, from heavy 21s from the X6 to 18 inch forged wheels now and the difference is significant.

335iAP wrote

Looks great. Acceleration really doesn't feel different? Just hard to imagine for me. I went the other way, from heavy 21s from the X6 to 18 inch forged wheels now and the difference is significant.

No, and I drive mine harder than an X3 should be driven really... Sport+ is a daily thing

For reference the diameter on the fronts went from 702.2mm to 755.5mm, so a -7.05% speedo difference which is quite a bit, whereas the rears went from 702.2mm to 728.5mm giving a -3.61% speed difference.

So there must be a difference but I honestly don't feel it.

windymiller wrote

For reference the diameter on the fronts went from 702.2mm to 755.5mm, so a -7.05% speedo difference which is quite a bit, whereas the rears went from 702.2mm to 728.5mm giving a -3.61% speed difference.

So there must be a difference but I honestly don't feel it.

Interesting. Some quick googling says these are about 37 lbs for the front wheels and 39 for the rears, vs. mine (OEM m-parallels) that are about 22 lbs. My old style 215s were about 47/53 lbs front/back. I guess I didn't think the difference from 21s to 20s would be that significant.

Looks great! Thinking about doing the same.

I know when i tried a set of X5 wheels on mine i definately felt the difference. Although a lot of the difference was anytime i hit a bump or anything. Sadly the fronts were too close to the strut so never kept them. But man did it look mean with all that tire.

Hallo,
ich fahre die gleichen felgen in 10 u. 11 x20 auf meinem x3 F25 35d.
Hat jemand Ahnung ob ich auch ne nummer schmalere reifen fahren kann. bezüglich XDrive ist mischbereifung sorgfältig zu wählen.
mir würde die grösse 255/35/20 auf der 10zoll und 305/30/20 auf der 11zoll gefallen, aber wie ist der abrollumfang wenn sich der reifen auf der felge zieht ?

PANIK335 wrote

Hallo,
ich fahre die gleichen felgen in 10 u. 11 x20 auf meinem x3 F25 35d.
Hat jemand Ahnung ob ich auch ne nummer schmalere reifen fahren kann. bezüglich XDrive ist mischbereifung sorgfältig zu wählen.
mir würde die grösse 255/35/20 auf der 10zoll und 305/30/20 auf der 11zoll gefallen, aber wie ist der abrollumfang wenn sich der reifen auf der felge zieht ?

Did you use wheel spacers to place the wheels further out from strut tower? If so what size? Example: 10mm.

windymiller wrote

For reference the diameter on the fronts went from 702.2mm to 755.5mm, so a -7.05% speedo difference which is quite a bit, whereas the rears went from 702.2mm to 728.5mm giving a -3.61% speed difference.

So there must be a difference but I honestly don't feel it.

Did you use wheel spacers to place the wheels further out from strut tower? If so what size? Example: 10mm.