More front tire rubbing fun

[Pathosmusic]

I just got new rims and tires for my e85, after a decent amount of research and talking with a rep over at fitment industries. He assured me that this setup exists on my specific car with no modification needed and no rubbing. Well he was wrong and there is decent rubbing on the outer fender liner, even going straight with small to medium bumps on the fronts.

Wheel size is 19x8.5 et35 and tires are 235/35/19. Unless I’m wrong, I was told these should be fine, but yet they aren’t. What could be the root cause here? Will dropping tires sizes help? I don’t want a stretched look, and no fender rolling. Could the suspension be the culprit at 18 years old? Will that actually fix the rubbing though because It doesn’t seem like a height issue where it’s rubbing?

Any advice is welcome, as I’m freaking out having spent all this money on them and can’t use them and the wife isn’t happy lol.

 

[PedroSouth]

My car came with same size, 19x8.5 ET 35 on fronts with 235/35 on a non-M, not lowered, fitted by the previous owner and they rubbed and damaged the arch liners. You may need to move to 225 width I think but they will stretch.

I moved back to 18s and replaced the arch liners.

 

[brillomaster]

Hmm, that front wheel sticks out 18.4mm further than before, which is quite a lot... I'd definitely start with a 225 tyre to save 5mm a side (and a tiny bit of diameter too) which might be enough to prevent rubbing.

Heck you could even try a 215, but that might look a bit stretched (though within acceptable range according to the LVVTA tyre size charts)

Other thing you could try is adding camber... front top mounts should be on slotted holes, which you could push all the way in to gain a couple of mm.

 

[mmm-five]

19" wheels were never an OE option on the e85/86 Z4, nor was a 235 width front tyre, so the Fitment Industries expert is wrong.

The correct tyre sizes for a 19" set would be 225/35r19 (0.4% smaller) front and 255/40r19 (0.2% smaller) rear.

I went up to a 265/40r18 rear as it made it closer to the front diameter (only -0.2% out vs the +0.6% of the 255/50r18), so the speedo became more accurate as a consequence...and the tyre I wanted was only available in that size at the time.

 

[ARCS]

I'd say it's your offset that's the problem. Too pokey. I had a few different sets of 19's on my old e85 and never had any rubbing issues, and that was with lowered suspension.

 

[Pathosmusic]

Someone on another forum mentioned that it looks like the wheels are too far forward, pointing the issue to a caster angle problem most likely caused by lower control arm bushings. Im going to have the car into a BMW shop near me and see if they can figure out whats going on, but will also call FI and try to fight them on this.

Would going to an 8" width on the front be too crazy with 9.5" width on the rears?

 

[Mr Tidy]

My car had a set of CSL Reps when I bought it and I didn't get any rubbing despite it being on coil-overs, but the fronts were 19 x 8.5J ET44 with 235/35 tyres.

As someone already said your problem looks likely to be the ET34 offset.