Quote:
Originally Posted by doughboy
Yeah i appreciate they have the "starred" BMW tyres, but that isn't an M2 specific tyre though (which is what I thought you were saying) That same tyre could be factory fit on any BMW with that size surely?
Funny how when a car like a lambo has a tyre developed for it then its a big thing and is played up. But BMW never mention tyre development like that. Seems odd they would go to such lengths / costs and not mention it?
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It's 99% a M2 specific tire that you have on your car. I don't know the M3/M4 sizes but I doubt they used those tires on the M2, but a possibility because if the sizes are the same, it has a similar enough track width, weight distribution, power, drivetrain and passenger load to the M4.
People on this forum may not care but I can tell you that OEMs care a whole lot about rolling resistance. They squeeze every ounce of mpg out of every supplier and tires get the brunt of it. When I was on the corvette program I was dumbfounded how much effort we spent squeezing marginal amounts of RR out of the tire while maintaining the rest of the performance spider chart.
You can fit the same size tire on any vehicle that supports it. It may just be amazing on that car or it could be a total flop, it all depends on what the designers were doing. One thing for sure, Michelin is head and shoulders crushing the competition...but that's no surprise, their engineering budget was 3x of GY. Michelin, unlike some of the noob 3rd tier companies like Toyo and Falken, has the technology to build all around amazing tires. Any moron designer can make an amazing wet handling tire or a tire with amazing rolling resistance or wear, but very few companies have the capabilities to nail a majority of the necessary metrics that consumers expect these days.
Some performance characteristics go hand in hand like RR and treadwear because of the low compound hysterisis. The challenge is how do you achieve amazing handling characteristics while maintaining wear and RR? The tread compound is only 1 piece of a huge puzzle. Typically high performance tires will have three tread compounds, with the whole tire having over a dozen different compounds. Then you factor in all the ply and breaker material...
OE programs for tire companies aren't always a "profitable venture". One thing we always said was, "there are two brands on the car, the car manufacturer and the tire". It's a huge marketing push to have your tires as OE on a big name brand. Think of it as marketing. That said, these days the OE programs are profitable and the big 4 charge a healthy amount from consumers/OEM.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the vehicle manufacturer rarely cares about what tire is on the car as long as it's not some no name brand POS(2nd tier or 3rd tier such as Toyo, Kelly, Firestone, etc). What they care about is TEST drives, magazine reviews, consumer reports(these people are idiots and scammers), tire rack reviews(ditto mostly idiots) and what customers think of the car when they drive it. They want a quiet tire that has a supple ride and can handle like a bat out of hell, they also care that the tire makes it through a 36k mile lease. Most consumers won't say "these tires are shit", instead they'll say "wow this car doesn't handle well" or "this car is loud inside, it doesn't isolate tire noise well" or "bmw put cheap tires that wore out too quickly".
Take no offense to this but even enthusiasts don't really understand tires and see them as a commodity, sans tire size. Tire manufacturers fight like hell for OE programs and they have to bring their A game to survive and win future contracts/RFPs.
Ok off to get food