Broken 19" rim: advice please

[Starman]

I need advice from people who have owned the Z4 longer then I. I have only put 3000 miles on my 2013 but during those miles I clearly noted how much absolute pounding the car took wit the Potenza run flats on them. There were times that felt like my back would break when I hit a hard bump on the freeway. Im also very aware people here have had broken rims.

I posted last week about the fact that I got a flat and just replaced all 4 with new rubber.

So, I only took her out once for a spirited drive to break in the tires a bit (30 miles maybe) and a few days after getting the new Michellin Pilot S sport tires with the same ratio (255/30 rear and 255/35 front), I found the front driver side tire flat in the morning. I pumped it up 3 times and within 24 hours in went flat again each time.

Now, I was absolutely furious at the tire place, mostly because they had made me wait a total of 10 hours (IN SHOP!) to get the new tires total over 2 days. This really through me over and I absolutely slammed them in a survey they sent which got the attention of the store managers who wanted to "fix it".

My Z4 has 37000 miles on it and I put 3K miles on it until the rear passenger flat happened. Its never had new tires from what I could tell.

So I took the rim in this morning and it turns out this wheel has a strait line crack across the 1" interior wheel wall. They showed me it bubbling the air out with water.

They offered to buy me a new rim and I refused because I dont feel like this was their issue (although it musta just happened right?). But that's my question to you, my guess is the wheel was already compromised and them doing work on it just finished it off. They could still buy the entire rim, in fact they were adamant about it but Im just not that kind of person and we agreed that they would just sell it to me whole sell (they said $400, does that sound right for the 19" rim)?

What do you owners with this issue think?

Am I gonna have this issue with the rest of my rims soon, have any of you? 37K miles?

Thanks again for the advice and cheers!

 

[Doddsy]

Guessing you have style 326m wheels?

 

[Gwest44]

The likelihood is that the wheel was already cracked when you took it in initially for the new tyres and to be honest any reputable fitting company should have brought your attention to that before fitting the new tyre.

I suspect the company has realised that hence their offer of a new wheel to save face.

I'm assuming that you have style 296 or 326 wheels.

I have 326's on my current car with MPS4S but with a slightly different profile on the rear - 225/35 front & 255/35 rear rather than the suggested 255/30. I find these much better than the previous E89 I had with 296's which had the suggested sizes. In addition I have had no issues with the 326 wheels cracking and the car has covered over 10,000 miles since the tyres were changed. The previous owner had however replaced all the wheels with new when they removed the run flats because of multiple cracks.

The cracks are repairable by the way - from memory the previous car I had with the 296’s had at least 2 repairs on each rim. That said it sounds like you've already gone down the new replacement route which is obviously ideal - in terms of a comparative I would suggest getting a quote from a local BMW dealer.

 

[Starman]

Guessing you have style 326m wheels?3B11F720-2AB9-4F1C-BAE3-703526859EB1.jpeg

Not this model, model 296

I checked online and they look like they run about $600 so $400 seems a decent price ("wholesale price")

 

[Starman]

The likelihood is that the wheel was already cracked when you took it in initially for the new tyres and to be honest any reputable fitting company should have brought your attention to that before fitting the new tyre.

I suspect the company has realised that hence their offer of a new wheel to save face.

I'm assuming that you have style 296 or 326 wheels.

I have 326's on my current car with MPS4S but with a slightly different profile on the rear - 225/35 front & 255/35 rear rather than the suggested 255/30. I find these much better than the previous E89 I had with 296's which had the suggested sizes. In addition I have had no issues with the 326 wheels cracking and the car has covered over 10,000 miles since the tyres were changed. The previous owner had however replaced all the wheels with new when they removed the run flats because of multiple cracks.

The cracks are repairable by the way - from memory the previous car I had with the 296’s had at least 2 repairs on each rim. That said it sounds like you've already gone down the new replacement route which is obviously ideal - in terms of a comparative I would suggest getting a quote from a local BMW dealer.20220704_105441.jpg

Thank you for the info!!! I actually asked 3 shops to put 255/35 on the rear and all 3 refused saying things like "BMW's are finicky about their tires" or "we can only put factor specs on". I had one place refuse to put non run flats on (Cosco). Another feature of the US "lawyer" culture I guess.

Ill tell them to let me keep the wheel and Ill look into repair, cant go wrong having a spare it seems based on what you are saying.