This is a huge annoyance for me personally! When my car's handling and stability was worse than my Isuzu Diesel Double Cab due to tramlining and just generally feeling twitchy I decided to fit that pair of Hankook S1 EVO K107 RFT's (correct size and spec to match the car, and no doubt SABS approved). But then I discovered that BMW SA are full of nonsense with regards to tyres when it comes to motorplan. Just BTW, the car was so much better to drive with these Hankooks, not so noisy, very very stable and hardly any if at all traces of wanting to tramline - basically the car felt safe and sure-footed!
With my next service around the corner I knew I had to find out about this and went to a BMW dealer. Immediately I am being told that if I use these tyres which they claim were not tested on BMW's and have softer sidewalls (how would they know if they have not tested) would cause damage to the suspension, but you can fit BMW approved non-RFT's (umm, which have softer sidewalls, go figure). How can softer sidewall tyres first of all cause MORE damage than there hard as nails RFT's, surely if anything, the harder RFT's are going to cause the damage. Then they said that the non BMW approved tyres could even cause damage to the drivetrain!
Their logic was just so very silly and ignorant - basically just saying what they "were told to say" rather than have proper explanations. You see, BMW has some sort of contract with these various brands so that they are OEM, and to "protect" these brands they insist that they are used throughout the motorplan period regardless of how they perform. At this point I was losing my temper a bit and asked if being SABS was not enough, "no" he said, so then I asked him, "so I gather all local fuels are not only SABS approved, but also BMW approved??" Of course he had no answer for that...
Later that day I read an article with regards to the then new F20 1 Series that was still to be launched saying that one of the OEM tyre brands was going to be Hankook! Plus, German DTM BMW's all run on Hankook which HUGE branding all over them! You can just imagine my level of irritation. I then gave in and bought a new pair of the horrible Continental Sport Contact 2 BMW approved RFT's and was back to driving a twitchy nervous handling car, just to keep BMW SA happy!
Then a short while after the last motorplan covered service my car's engine starts to develop a pinging issue which BMW Auto Atlantic could not solve after numerous attempts - now I am stick with a car almost 2 years later still suffering from this problem! Must have been the Hankooks that has caused my pinging! :fishwack:
And yes, on all of the oversees BMW forums probably the first thing that people do is ditch the RFT's! And apparently without any issues!
