I have a 2013 740 Li with 66,730 miles. I bought it used over a year ago with 28,000 miles. Last night I had a flat, but made it home safely. Took the car to the tire store this morning and discovered the main tread separating from the tire. The tire is the Good Supercar F1, runflat. The technician decided to check the other tires and they are all showing "signs" of separation or small bulge in the tread pattern specifically towards the inside edge of the tire, where the tread meets the sidewall. The car has always been aligned properly. Additionally during the inspection we noticed that each wheel had a small crack in it. The cracks were observed on the inside edge of the wheel. One wheel had a crack that was starting to spread into the barrel of the wheel. Has anyone else experienced this problem with cracks in their wheels? I am cautious to avoid potholes and consider myself a careful driver, but for each wheel to have cracks, I find this a bit usual. Is there a fix or am I in the market for new wheels?
Since you can't account for whatever happened to the car before you've had it, there's no way to rule out the possibility of an incident or incidents that's happened before to end-up with damaged tires and cracked wheels. it also seems unusual to me to have all wheels cracked, but, no way to know anything more definitive without knowing whatever's happened earlier. With the increasing move towards lower and lower profile tires with less and less sidewall, and runflats, comes, unfortunately, ever-more increased risk of impact damage to tires & rims. So, even if on the surface it seems unlikely, obviously something's happened and you're unfortunately stuck having to contend with the consequences. It _might_ be possible to have the rims welded, but, that's less than ideal of course, and, possibly not recommended. I could see potential issues with future balancing, hard to see welds on a wheel meaning equal weight around the barrel, etc. If your stylistic preference is the lowest profile tires possible on the largest rims possible, unless you happen to be in someplace with billiard-smooth roads everywhere you go, likelihood of impact damage to rims &/or tires is even higher. On my E92, I went with downsized rims to be able to run as much sidewall height as possible. Couple that with non-runflats (also toting one of the BMW mini-spares and tire-changing equipment less-than-optimally consuming space in the trunk) adds up to improved street ride comfort, and more sidewall means less risk of rim damage. Also, lighter wheels than the stock ones allows the suspension to work better. Downside, on my car at least, is with M-pkg brakes, caliper clearance is very close - I went w/ Apex wheels as they're good on known fitments. 7's could be a whole different ballgame in that regard though. Tire Rack should have a variety of wheel options - me, I'd choose the lightest wheels possible that I like the look of, in as small a diameter as possible to run a tire with as much sidewall as possible. If you prefer the potential advantage of runflats, there's the trade-off with ride-quality, but that's a personal choice. If you use snows, then all-seasons or some flavor of performance summer rubber; if you don't opt for snow tires, then all-seasons. I'm liking Michelin AS/3's, but, the Conti's seems to be the other comparable choice - whether a tire's available in your desired size may effect wheel choice. Many BMW's run staggered sizes front/rear, I like square setups to dial-out some of the understeer, and make it possible to get max usage out of the tires be being able to rotate from front to back (otherwise you're stuck having rims dismounted and flipped on the rims, and the rears will always wear out well before the fronts). W/ 2013 5yr-old batteries now, the tpms sensors probably still have some life left to them, hard to say how long those batteries will last. If you opt for new tpms sensors, then at least that's one-less thing to have to deal with for awhile. I like the price/weight ratio of Apex wheels, basketweave design looks fine, although a bit of a nuisance to clean; theirs at least the spokes are open enough it's not too bad. They're mostly focused on 3er's & M-cars though, so if you want to consider them, would be worth having a conversation do discuss if the strength specs of their wheels is appropriate for the larger 7'er, &, what options/fitments they have. You can look up your wheel offset finding the wheels on your car in realoem.com. BMW stock wheels have okay aesthetics, but they tend to be heavy; however, I think they're usually pretty solid too - I'd guess the largest stock wheels w/ whatever low a sidewall they'd have would be more prone to damage and cracking though, as any other wheel would. Unless you really really wanted the same O.E. wheels, which would be pricey, you should, presumably, be able to find a lighter wheel for a better price from the aftermarket, assuming you find something to your taste style-wise. This is useful for comparing fitments: -https://www.rimsntires.com/specspro.jsp Tire Rack is conservative on their fitments, so if you go that route, whatever comes up searching you should be able to be confident will fit.
Thanks for the response. My car has the "M" Sport Package and I really like the wheel. I am a stickler for stock appearance too, but I understand the concern for large wheels (19-inch) and low profile tires. I like the ride of my car, and usually keep it in the sport mode. This is going to be a tough decision.
I just wish we had more on here to share direct experience to find if you're cracked-rims issue is any kind of common problem, which would be a reason to switch things up. If it's an anomaly, then you'd have higher confidence the expenditure of a replacement set of o.e. wheels doesn't see you suffering anything similar hopefully at all, or at least, anytime soon. Check out some of the other BMW-specific forums &/or try your question there, maybe you find someone w/ the same car, or both car and wheels. Bimmerforums.com, Bimmerfest.com, Bimmerpost.com - our resident tech, Charlson, I expect will pipe-in with his thoughts sometime, when he has a chance. For a very specific google search (hey, can never hurt), you can look up your car on realoem.com, and find your specific wheels, then search something like "BMW 740Li style xxx cracked wheels" as a starting point to see if anything comes up, & broaden the search terms from there. Certainly worth trying to confirm/check further before pulling the trigger on a major purchase!
Cant say I am aware of any issues with those style rims having any cracking issues. I do know BMW do have a better chance of cracking wheels because of the runflat tires. I do see a lot of cracked wheels here in Iowa. Most times if you only have one crack we have a company that will weld these cracks for around 100 dollars. If there is more than one crack the wheel can't be welded.
