I was prepping the ’72 2002tii for the 2,100-mile round trip to the Vintage in Asheville, North Carolina, when my magic smart phone made an e-mail ding. I try to be hyper-responsive to everyone who wants something from me, so I checked my e-mail. It was from BMW CCA member Drew Zacharda, and it said:

    “After reading your articles on your 530i purchase, I ended up getting a 2001 530i to replace my 2000 540i with bad timing-chain guides. Thankfully, the wheels on my 530i were in excellent condition (albeit a real pain to clean). I've been scouring Craigslist to find tan heated sport seats, and came across an ad listing Style 42s for $100 in Braintree. At this point, you may have established a spiritual bond with the wheels you refurbished, but $100 is $100.”

    I checked the ad. It was literally one sentence (“4 tires and rims off my old 02 BMW 530i tires have some tread left on them you can call/ text anytime”) and one bad cell-phone picture from which I couldn’t tell anything.

    I called, and the seller was pretty non-specific about the condition of the wheels. There were any number of reasons to let it pass—my Suburban is off the road, my E39 with the fold-down seats is marooned out in Fitchburg in the garage where the tii usually is, four wheels won’t fit in my Z3, and I was leaving for the Vintage in two days—but when the traffic subsides, Braintree is only twenty minutes from my house—and, as Drew said, $100 is $100. So I arranged to see the wheels in the evening.

    I borrowed Maire Anne’s Honda Fit and folded down the seats. I arrived in Braintree to find a set of intact Style 42s with no visible dents. One of them was quite presentable, but with flaking clear coat. The other three had some amount of corrosion on the lips, but nothing remotely resembling The Style 42s From Hell that consumed way too much of my time a few months back. The tires were even usable, not yet worn down to the wear bars.

    What? You think I was supposed to do something other than hand over the hundred bucks and load up the wheels?

    The irony, of course, is that these are exactly what I was looking for several months back: a cheap set of 42s with tires, usable as-is, in a condition commensurate with the rest of the car. The best of the corroded bunch looks like this:

    And the worst looks like this:

    As I said in a past column, I’m not a wheel whore, I’m a deal whore. These sorts of ads are a test: If you pass on one, you’ll anger the Automotive Powers That Be, and your Craigslist mojo will dry up and blow away. 

    If and when I sell the 530i, maybe I’ll put these wheels on it. I look at it as spending $100 to purchase future flexibility. With this purchase, though, the number of wheels beneath the back porch became officially out of hand. I know, because Maire Anne, who rarely asks me to contain my entropy, balked.

    In her defense, under the deck were:

    • These
    • A set of E39 Borbet wheels with one-season-left snows I got for free from a friend of a friend who wanted them out of his shed
    • The winter wheels for the Honda Fit
    • The E34 Style 5 wheels I originally had on the Shark until I found the RC090s
    • The original stamped steel wheels for the Bavaria (it’s wearing the E9’s slotted alloys)
    • A set of dented seventeen-icnh steel wheels and worn-out snows from the departed E46 wagon that I tried selling for $50 on Craigslist and had no takers
    • Some E30 basketweaves that I picked up cheap
    • Two sets of stamped, slotted 2002 wheels, one with junk tires, one bare

    That’s eleven sets of wheels not currently on cars. There’s no pretending that’s not a pant-load of wheels.

    To assure domestic tranquility, I stuffed as many of them as I could in the Suburban—now that I have the E39, it is off the road and fulfilling its destiny as a quasi-mobile storage unit—and ran two sets out to Fitchburg, where I store a few cars.

    I thought I had the problem corralled. 

    Then, yesterday, Club member Jim Fraser, whom I’ve never met, sent me an e-mail with a link to another CL post, this one in Chichesterm New Hampshire, for another set of Style 42s, with a $200 price tag. In the ad, they appear relatively corrosion-free.

    Chichester, though, isn’t twenty minutes away; it’s more like an hour and 45 minutes. And we’re leaving in a few days to attend our middle boy Kyle’s wedding, and I have other matters more pressing than a third set of Style 42s. (I know you’re shocked).

    I’m thinking that this is a different kind of test. In fact, I’m wondering if “Jim Fraser” is actually Maire Anne Diamond, probing to see if I have any wheel limits whatsoever. I’m onto you, “Jim”!

    As Bob Dylan said in “Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine,” I’m gonna let you pass.—Rob Siegel

    Rob’s book Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic is available through Bentley Publishers, Amazon, and Bavarian Autosport—or you can get a personally inscribed copy through Rob’s website: www.robsiegel.com. His new book, The Hack Mechanic Guide to European Automotive Electrical Systems, can be pre-ordered from Bentley Publishers. Use the coupon code “BMWCCAELECTRIC” for 30% off list.