The clear coat on the 4 rims on my 2013 X-3 is chipping and failing. . The vehicle had less than 19,000.00 miles when I first reported this to BMW. The car is a Florida car and has never seen winter driving and is still in showroom condition, except for the wheels. The BMW factory rep told me that I must be using a harsh wheel cleaner and damaged the wheels due to improper cleaning, which is definitely not the case and BMW is denying my warranty claim. The are offering a 50% goodwill discount on new rims which I refused. Any advice ??
Understandably frustrating - you could try contacting the club's ombudsman for insight on pursuing matters further with your dealer or BMW. Seems odd to me you'd have such a problem on a southern car so soon - that's the type of thing you see on older rims. Unless your rims are some unique color, they likely can be easily repainted, I'd have a professional do it though if you want the best results. Wurth does have silver wheel paint & clear coat, but getting a _great_ result is tricky with d-i-y painting methods when it's your first attempt. Stuff like that, I usually find that if there's a chance of getting it right d-i-y-ing it, you usually work out all the kinks and nuances so that you'd get the spare perfect after doing the first four, except the spare (if there is one), of course, doesn't need it (meaning . The best results you'd get from dismounting the tires & having the wheels stripped of the clear coat/paint, & then repainted & clear-coated. D-I-Y is the cheapest with the highest likelihood of poor results, handing the wheels to a pro would be the most costly, but, _should_ yield a good result. Otherwise, you could hunt ebay for clean, used wheels, or use something like searchtempest.com to search multiple craigslist ads.
@MGarrison, Thanks for your kind reply and efforts to help me resolve my rim problems. BTW the rims are stock silver rims that are fitted to the 3.0 liter engined vehicles. I may take your advice and contact the club ombudsmen. BMW customer service has been very nice but are taking the side of their local field rep. I just wonder if other owners/members are having a similar wheel problem.
Can't say I have seen to many of these chip yet. I also recommend like Garrison said to get the wheels repainted. The guys who redo these wheels can match them perfectly and you can't even tell it's ever been done.
The end to this story is that BMW's regional service rep agreed to pay to have the rims professionally refinished at the factory's expense. I still feel that they should have replaced the rims but I am satisfied with the end result.
I just ran into the same problem with my liquid black 464M wheels. When I bought the car, I negotiated that the dealership would refinish/repaint the wheels because some clear coat was chipping. They had the wheels painted a glossy black instead of the liquid black. I just got my car back after asking them to fix it again and it looks like all they did was put another layer of black with metal flakes. I'm now going to the BMWCCA Ombudsmen to see what they can do for me.
@jabbarjd, Well, bad news, My 4 wheels that BMWNA and the dealer so graciously refinished are failing. I am noticing small hairline cracks in the clear coat on two of the wheels. I am starting to regret my decision to accept their offer to repair the rims. I feel terrible since I really look after the vehicle (almost to fault) and now I am faced with the same recurring problem which I feel shouldn't be happening to a $56,000.00 vehicle driven less than 6000 miles a year on South Florida pristine roads.
