2006 530i 18" Alloy Wheels I own a 2006 530i with Run Flat Tires on Standard 18" Alloy Wheels. My problem is not with the Tires as I have 36,000 miles on original set. My problem is in NOV of 07 I cracked a rt rear wheel and had to replace it along with the tire. BMW would not cover under warranty. April 11 2008 I brought my car to Chatsworth Tire where I buy all of my tire and was told that I broke the left rear and RT front wheels this time. Chatsworth tire says that the RFT low profile tires are so hard that the wheels take 100% of the force even when going over small bumps or pot holes. Anyone else out there experiencing this same problem.. Please let me know Rickster
Yes, I had so many cracked rims and ruined tires I replaced them at my BMW dealer with regular rims and tires (not run flat). Run flat low profile tires are terrible for the damage they do when you hit a pothole.
Runflats These tires really suck!! Because they are so hard, when you hit a pot hole the tires do not absorb the hit and later the tire seperates on the sidewalls because it is so thick there forms a bubble then a flat tire. Got 5 flat tires in 5 months and 3 tires were in just 30 days. May have a rerar cracked rims but not sure. Put one of those inflate flat repair and it helped. Have 2 regular non run flat tires in the front and ride is so much better!! Your suspension will also take a beating because how stiff the ride is.
If that happened to me I'd be all over BMW NA customer relations, scheduling a review by the district service manager, and questioning if I should be contacting the U.S. DOT on the safety of the wheels. If you relied on your dealer's opinion that this is not a warranty matter, you shot yourself in the foot. Tell your dealer you want the old wheel back and tell your selling-BMW dealer that you want to speak with a BMW NA rep. If you hit a stone wall, call BMW NA yourself, the number's in your glove-box book package. Certainly some of this is related to the low-profile tires required on 17" and 18" rims but, run-flat or not, it seems like a safety issue to me if the rims are cracking. But that's why I don't live in the big city like you high-rollers with your 18" rims; I haven't bent a wheel on a pot-hole in years, even when encountering some of the worst pavement ever while touring Boston-area colleges with daughter #2. I hit such a huge pavement-drop on the freeway at high speed I thought for sure I'd bent at least two rims. My OZ 17" with 235/45 tires were just fine. Sounds like your stock rims wouldn't have fared as well. In my decades-long experience with BMWs, I've always found their stock wheels to be BETTER than aftermarket wheels in both strength and balance. I wouldn't give up until I'd heard the brush-off straight from the horse's mouth. Let us know what they say.
There's a lot of sides to this argument... I heard that over $17B of car repairs are caused by roads that aren't maintained in the US. Rattles the crap out of ALL cars, not just ours. Run flat or non run flat, a 35 series tire has very short sidewalls. A stiffer sidewall will actually protect the rim more (the service tech is BSing you to say different). If you don't belive me, work out the spring model yourself. The non-run flat will take less of the shock, pinch the sidewall easier, and collaps to the point where you're hitting the rim directly with less force than the run flat. If you live where you have really crappy roads, you can think of going to a smaller diameter wheel and taller tire, or if you really don't want to do this, getting wheel/tire insureance cause you're gonna keep having the problem. Run a bit higher tire pressures as well, this will help as well. In fact, watch your tire pressures like a hawk, if they are low you will knock the snot out of your wheels more often. Also, the lower the profile of your tire, the more careful you have to be about pot holes, speed bumps, rail road tracks and the like. Just the nature of the beast. If you have tons of problems, you may want to switch to non-facotry wheels. I've seen the prices for factory BMW wheels and it's not cheap at all! There are lots of places where you can buy a good set of wheels for the price of one factory wheel. Doesn't look stock, but if you have BBS style wheels you can get very close from the aftermarket. Hope this helps, Matt
Run flats There are so many pot holes where I live. Once in my Range Rover I was driving through a puddle and sank 1/3 of a foot and hit the bottom of my shocks. It was shocking. Yes these Run Flat tires are bad and get very bad reviews on TireRack.com and many people can get warrantied but mostly for excess road noise from the tires after so many miles. Bmw says pot holes cannot be a warranty item because it can be avoided if people drive more carefully. I will look into what you have said though and see how it goes. Would you believe many people like to put 20 inch rims on these cars. They do look nice though for how long until hit a pot hole then be running with 3 20 inch and a spare. Not cool. I have a friend that just leased an M5 and put 22 inch rims on his car. Don't know what he is thinking. The stock rims are pretty nice since they are made by BBS. Maybe one day I will buy after market 18 inches for my car or the new 535i. Thanks for the info though!!
I disagree because since I replaced the runflat tires and rims on my 2006 530xi (which gave me 3 cracked rims and 5 ruined tires) I have had no cracked rims and no ruined tires, not even a flat. Its been 2 months now and I drive over the same I-95 roads in CT/NY as I did before. By the way, my dealer does not offer the wheel insurance saying the company that used to offer when bankrupt (I can see why). I went on google looking to buy it and couldn't find it anywhere. Is it only available if through your BMW dealer, even though its not a BMW sponsored plan? Where could someone buy it after they already have purchased a car?
A couple things... The only goodwill tire bulletins are for the e90 16" bridgestone el42 rft or the e60 18" dunlop sp rft's. If you don't have one of those two tires, you don't qualify for goodwill tire replacement. Period. BMW should not pay to replace tires that are simply worn out. RFT's will wear out significantly faster than non rft's. The range that I see is 15-22k on the 16" el 42's and 13-18k on the 18" dunlops max. Any more than that they have to be all city miles. Stop hitting so many potholes! I basically drive a fully prepped M3 race car on the streets of Pittsburgh (almost as bad as NJ/Detroit roads) as a daily driver and I have never bubbled or damaged a tire. If you see a pot hole, go around it. It's really not that hard to do if you are paying attention. If you do hit one, call the DOT and tell them a pothole in THEIR road caused YOUR property to be damaged. Might want to even embellish and bit and say it almost caused you to wreck as a result, they should pay for it. If they will pay to clean road paint off of a car, they should pay for your tire/wheel. Most people just dont' want the hassle of going through the DOT, but if you want compensation BMW is not at all who you should go after.
After having craked 3 18" Wheels due to Run Flat Tires, and replacing them Ibrought the cracked wheels to the dealer so a Didtrct Service Suprv. could look at them.He determined that the cracks were not due to defective wheels but rathaer how I drove the car by hitting pot holes. I finally decided to put Michelin 245/40ZR18 Regular Tires on my 2006 530I. I went back to my dealer and to, show good will my BMW Dealer agreed to sell me the tires at the same price as a tire store I nomally buy from. This was a savings of $42/tire. They also agreed to re-imburse me for the 3 replacement Wheels I purchased from them Even though they never admiited there is a manufacturing flaw with RFT on 18" wheels they show good faith by giving me what I asked for. .
