BMW on BBC's Watchdog

Timewaster

Anybody see Watchdog last night?

They were on about BMW's alloy wheels. Well, more specifically 19" rear rims on 3 Series. They keeps cracking & splitting on customers.

BMW are saying it's beacuse of the bad roads in England & careless drivers are hitting potholes & taking on speed bumps at high speeds.

Industry experts are saying it's a design flaw in the wheels & BMW should issue a safety recall.

I've experienced this on several occations. Not as a customer but as a BMW Workshop Controller. BMW's alloys (some of them) are very soft & easily crack.

I remember replacing a couple under warranty.

If this happens to anyone, see an independent tyre guy & see what the situation is. You may not get it covered under warranty but BMW are quite good at goodwill gestures, they may offer to pick up some of the bill.

Stevie Dakota

Anyone who chooses 19" rims does so choosing form over function and there is a price for that I'm afraid, they are madness on our roads.

Owen

And with 9 posts, Timewaster is about to be innundated by people wanting BMW warranty jobs done, and BMW Ireland wondering where they all came from. Eeek :eek:

Timewaster

Sorry to disapoint lads. I left them a few months back. But I do agree that 19" rims in this country are a f***ing joke. I had a Z4 Coupe (savage car) with 19's on them & trying to tackle any sort of secondary road was like being in a blender.

Voodoomelon

All depends on the tyre though, you can run 19s no problem as long as you don't have rubber bands on them. But I suppose for most cars to fit 19s, they have to be low profile.

Timewaster

Add BMW's Runflats to that. Disaster

robbie99

Timewaster wrote: »

Anybody see Watchdog last night?

Dam I missed that. Do you know if and when this will be repeated?

robbie99

Hey, you can watch on BBC iPlayer!

Here's a thread on another forum by some of the guys who were on the watchdog...

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=313184

Saab Ed

Watchdog does high light great issues but the way in which they present it and deal with the issue is a total mockery. Dippso Anney did nothing to get proper answers from the guy representing the SMMT, all she did was shout him down and sneer at him with on the spot questions to which it was obvious he didnt have the answers. Great for the viewer numbers , bad for facts. The Daily Mirror of TV. Nothing really learned from last nights show IMO.

Tabnabs

robbie99 wrote: »

Hey, you can watch on BBC iPlayer!

Only if you live in the UK I thought?

robbie99

Dyflin wrote: »

Only if you live in the UK I thought?

Ok. I can watch it because my internet connection at work goes through a UK proxy. I think there are websites around that will redirect internet traffic to make it appear that you're in the UK. I'm sure someone with the knowledge will post how to do this.

Cionád

robbie99 wrote: »

Ok. I can watch it because my internet connection at work goes through a UK proxy. I think there are websites around that will redirect internet traffic to make it appear that you're in the UK. I'm sure someone with the knowledge will post how to do this.

Tutorial Here: http://hurwi.net/blog/?p=28

Timewaster

Saab Ed wrote: »

Watchdog does high light great issues but the way in which they present it and deal with the issue is a total mockery. Dippso Anney did nothing to get proper answers from the guy representing the SMMT, all she did was shout him down and sneer at him with on the spot questions to which it was obvious he didnt have the answers. Great for the viewer numbers , bad for facts. The Daily Mirror of TV. Nothing really learned from last nights show IMO.

I do agree with you on that point. They attack everyone they get on the show & won't let them answer, however, reps wouldn't be on the show if there wasn't a problem that they need to deal with. But again, in saying that, I agree.

I just started this thread to inform people who may have encountered this problem, and legitimatly havn't been tearing around B-roads that you may have case which could save you a few bob. And if they won't cover it under warranty, ask for goodwill. Honestly, you'd be suprised. I always helped customers as much as I possibly could & I knew in some cases that BMW, under no circumstances, would do a job under warranty (for various reasons) but if given a nudge, more times than not, have offered to pick up some of the tab. In some cases, they offer to pay the parts if customer will pay labour, or vice versa. Sometimes thay split it 50/50, sometimes more. Every little hepls.

MarkN

The 19s on my BMW are a 35 profile and the ride is very comfortable.. they're not run flats. Haven't had a problem with them anywhere on the roads.

Timewaster

MarkN wrote: »

The 19s on my BMW are a 35 profile and the ride is very comfortable.. they're not run flats. Haven't had a problem with them anywhere on the roads.

Good. I've never had a problem with them either & I've driven a lot of them with 19's (even 20'' & 22''). But I do know poeple who have & obviously others too.

If they do decide to carry out a safety recall, sorry, Technical Enhancement (stupid BMW speak. It's a F**KING recall), that's where BMW come up trumps.

Anan1

MarkN wrote: »

The 19s on my BMW are a 35 profile and the ride is very comfortable.. they're not run flats. Haven't had a problem with them anywhere on the roads.

Non run-flats would be quite a bit more compliant than RFTs, but I can't imagine they'd protect the rims as much as RFTs if you did hit a big pothole. That said, M3 wheels may well be stronger than the other BMW 19" options.

Timewaster

They are.

MarkN

They must be.. I was pushing along the M1 out of the port tunnel last week and there's a drop in the level on the road where roadworks start and my teeth could've cracked but thankfully nothing happened to the tyre or wheel.

copacetic

Anan1 wrote: »

Non run-flats would be quite a bit more compliant than RFTs, but I can't imagine they'd protect the rims as much as RFTs if you did hit a big pothole. That said, M3 wheels may well be stronger than the other BMW 19" options.

It's actually the opposite, the runflats are stiffer and transfer more energy to the wheel. So wheels are protected more by tyres with more give.

However this whole thing would appear to be down to manufacturing fault with a particular wheel rather than a general problem. It seems to have happened 95% of the time to the rear 225Ms on E92 coupes, which are a different size to the front 225Ms. With a car on 19s you would expect any damage to happen to the front wheels, not the rears, but nearly everyones problems have been the rears, and the problem seems mostly to have happened in the UK.

Ferris

A friend of mine cracked 3 19" wheels on separate ocassions before he made JD's change the wheels to 18's. They didn't want to until my mate threatened legal action due to the car not being fit for purpose.

At one stage they advised him to change to m3 wheels as they were stronger, are M3 wheels forged instead of cast? Forged wheels are stronger and lighter but are more expensive to produce.

JHMEG

Ferris wrote: »

At one stage they advised him to change to m3 wheels as they were stronger, are M3 wheels forged instead of cast? Forged wheels are stronger and lighter but are more expensive to produce.

Forged are a helluva lot stronger than cast. Googling comes up with:

The E92 M3 comes with standard cast 18" wheels/tires and optional forged 19" wheels/tires.

and

The 18" Style 260M wheels are cast, the 19" Style 220M wheels are forged and lighter

As the spelling would suggest that's in the US. Dunno about here.

copacetic

the 225M are the wheels with the problem, usually described as a 'light alloy' wheel, which I understand means forged in BMW terms.

Anan1

copacetic wrote: »

It's actually the opposite, the runflats are stiffer and transfer more energy to the wheel. So wheels are protected more by tyres with more give.

Think about it - RFTs will transfer more energy to the wheel under normal driving, but they have a strong, flexible sidewall that will progressively deform and cushion the maximum load when you hit a pothole. Normal tyres are more absorbent until the point where all the air is pushed away from the point of impact, at which time you only have a small amount of rubber between the rim and the edge of the pothole.

MarkN

I just don't know how flexible the sidewalls of the RFTs are, even when they're flat it's very hard to tell just by looking.

Run flats really would put me off buying a car they were just awful, awful things.

The 335 and the M3 power aside just feel like completely different cars, from the feedback through the wheel, the way they corner, particularly oven uneven surfaces etc.. it's hard to imagine a tyre can make such a difference.

Only us lot could have a 2 page thread on a Friday night about tyres. :rolleyes::D

Anan1

MarkN wrote: »

I just don't know how flexible the sidewalls of the RFTs are, even when they're flat it's very hard to tell just by looking.

Verging on impossible, i've had to let a bit of air out of the valve to tell which one has deflated. They're thick, solid rubber - pretty strong, but still a lot more flexible than a rim.;)

copacetic

Anan1 wrote: »

Think about it - RFTs will transfer more energy to the wheel under normal driving, but they have a strong, flexible sidewall that will progressively deform and cushion the maximum load when you hit a pothole. Normal tyres are more absorbent until the point where all the air is pushed away from the point of impact, at which time you only have a small amount of rubber between the rim and the edge of the pothole.

No, at the moment of impact 'progressive deformation' doesn't come into it, the runflats deliver much more force to the wheel than normal tyres. It's basic physics.

think of newtons cradle


the road is the outside ball, the tyre is the next one in, a run flat is very stiff and passes on all the force to the rim (middle ball). A normal tyre is much softer and dissipates the force as it deforms. The cradle wouldn't work at all with a normal tyre, but would work quite well with a run flat.

Anan1

copacetic wrote: »

No, at the moment of impact 'progressive deformation' doesn't come into it, the runflats deliver much more force to the wheel than normal tyres. It's basic physics.

think of newtons cradle


the road is the outside ball, the tyre is the next one in, a run flat is very stiff and passes on all the force to the rim (middle ball). A normal tyre is much softer and dissipates the force as it deforms. The cradle wouldn't work at all with a normal tyre, but would work quite well with a run flat.

This would perhaps make sense if RFTs had stainless steel sidewalls, but they don't. If you hit a pothole that's not severe enough to flatten a normal tyre momentarily against the rim then you're correct, but once that point has been reached a normal tyre is pretty much all out of compliance and the rim takes the hit. A RFT will still have that thick rubber sidewall to cushion the blow. To give a simple example, imagine yourself jumping out of progressively higher windows in a building onto a crashmat laid on the road outside. The softer the crashmat the better for you, until you jump from a height where the crashmat deforms fully and you effectively hit the road. From that point on, you're better off with a firmer crashmat.

Gatster

MarkN wrote: »

They must be.. I was pushing along the M1 out of the port tunnel last week and there's a drop in the level on the road where roadworks start and my teeth could've cracked but thankfully nothing happened to the tyre or wheel.

I hit that as well and as I nearly took off I thought it would have bent an alloy, but was fine (I have RFT's). It was 'addressed' by the next evening though...