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Yes, another wheels thread...

5K views 50 replies 7 participants last post by  mlcman 
#1 ·
I'm currently at a dead end regarding which wheels to pick for my summer set and ordering is due in order to have them here by April. Requirement is to go with a 18x8.5 wide wheel as I don't feel 245 on 8J would work well at the front axle in terms of response and steering feel. OR a 18x9.0 with a 255 tire (tight fit but supposedly working on lowered xDrive).

The designs I am after resemble the 763M, but I'm not considering cheap replicas due to questionable/random quality so...

Leggera HLT: Not coming in wider than 8.0 for 18" (WHY OZ???)

Bola FLC: No stock of GLOSS BLACK 18x8.5 in the foreseeable future (WHY BOLA??? It's so many months it's out of stock but still...)

Bola B19: No 18x8.5 in foreseeable stock, only 18x8.0 (as above)


What other similar design wheels that come in 18x8.5 Gloss Black would people suggest? I guess at this point only more expensive models (ie. over 400EUR/wheel) would be in stock/available?


I don't want to end up going for Protrack ONEs in 18x9.0 and 255 but I might just have to do that.
 
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#2 ·
You need Marco to read this as he knows absolutely everything from what I've seen and very helpful 👍 if I end up keeping mine I am going to ask him loads of questions lol , good luck with your wheels anyway.
 
#3 ·
Haha yeah, he should start charging for having replied to so many wheels and tires questions.

But really this is more a question of designs that fit under my criteria and I am ignoring, or designs that people find are working well on these cars (subjective I know) rather than sizes/fitment so I am hoping it could attract broader attention :p
 
#5 ·
Because the cost of doing that properly in Sweden is absurd, equal to an extra average quality wheels set (over 6000 SEK...). I had gone for a half-way solution in the past and whilst the paint was durable, the orange peel was annoyingly noticeable. It's just not worth it spending that much extra money on standard-range wheels, rather go for an expensive set right away.
 
#6 ·
Form Follows Function...

You can't see the rims while driving but will be constantly reminded that the handling is lacking when the wrong spec was chosen over better looks.

Glossy black might provide a visual pop when clean but won't make the car go faster ;)
 
#7 ·
I agree, which is why I would not consider some 18x8.0 wheels with 245/35 just because I like their design, hence I'm stuck.

On the other hand, I cannot disregard aesthetics, in this case the colour or design I am after. This is not the opposite of "form over function" as you put it, they are rather parallel requirements that have to be simultaneously met.

There has to be a 18x8.5 good quality wheel in gloss black and in the design I am after to match it with the 245/35 all-around, I just have to find it...
 
#12 ·
Started considering the Bola FLC in matt gunmetal which is available in the perfect size and perfect spec overall (flowforged, light, good quality, reasonable price). I actually think it might show off its design better in the gunmetal, black always hides the lines but with the rest of the car in black trim it might not hurt after all...

Wheel Tire Car Vehicle Automotive tire
 
#14 ·
Started considering the Bola FLC in matt gunmetal which is available in the perfect size and perfect spec overall (flowforged, light, good quality, reasonable price). I actually think it might show off its design better in the gunmetal, black always hides the lines but with the rest of the car in black trim it might not hurt after all...

[Image]
Yeah, I've got FLB's on mine as I said in gunmetal and I'm definitely glad I went for that colour over the black.
I use them on my track car and will be switching to semi-slicks over the summer for track use
 
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#13 ·
It'll likely feel the same on the rears, as the standard 1 series 18 inch rears are 18 x 8.
Front will feel more responsive, but a little heavier as you're putting more resistance into the road.

As for sidewall responses etc - depends on the tyre compound
 
#15 ·
Yes I agree black is showing off less details, and probably seems more cheap and yet somehow I always pick black wheels, what can I say...

Yours looks awesome in the pic above.

Considering everything is as I want it and the current very limited supply status I might have to make the difference this time with gunmetal... hmmm....
 
#18 ·
The increase in tramlining is only minor but the difference was noticeable when going back and forth between the two setups. A bigger difference was the more aggressive pulling and breaking of the 245/35 setup due to less rotational mass, better rubber and slightly smaller diameter.

With ET42 your scrub radius change is only 4mm versus OEM btw whereas with ET40 its 6mm whereas it should ideally stay within 5mm. Again nothing to worry about but its a slight improvement none the less.
 
#19 ·
The increase in tramlining is only minor but the difference was noticeable when going back and forth between the two setups. A bigger difference was the more aggressive pulling and breaking of the 245/35 setup due to less rotational mass, better rubber and slightly smaller diameter.

With ET42 your scrub radius change is only 4mm versus OEM btw whereas with ET40 its 6mm whereas it should ideally stay within 5mm. Again nothing to worry about but its a slight improvement none the less.
So what you're saying is essentially: "go for it?!" :LOL:
 
#20 ·
By the way, is ET42 the ideal offset for a 18x8.5 with 245 tire? I don't care having it further out so it's OK on that aspect, but is it certain to clear the strut on a lowered car on H&R??

@marco_polo ? :p

I have a special offer with free shipping that I should pull the trigger by tonight and it would be an expensive mistake to make ...
 
#23 ·
ET40 is the proven recipe on both RWD and xDrive models, I am not in any position to approve anything, merely sharing the experiences of my own setups. On standard springs ET40 works great with 245/35 and 235/40.

A 245/35 at ET40 is 1mm further in and 4mm lower than the 225/40 at ET30.

If a 255/35 9J ET50 can indeed be mounted up front then there should be plenty of room however for 245/35 at ET42, I can however not find any validation from other sources than the Danish guys that this actually should work.
 
#24 ·
Maybe the aggressive lowering of H&R is the culprit here then? Because I can assure you the 225/40 with ET30 which is was rubbing a lot and it wasn't pleasant...

I had one reply on FB that 8.5 ET42 with 245/35 works fine as long as you don't have M4 LCAs, which I don't, but I did not mention the lowering...


BTW. why the 245/35 ET40 is 1mm further away? They should be exactly at the same point no? 10mm extra tire per side, center moved 10mm closer to strut so 10-10 = 0 tire difference at the outer side, all the extra tire is towards the strut.
 
#26 ·
I'm afraid it's either ET42 or completely different rims which I don't have as an alternative as most are out of stock currently.

They will come with Asymmetric 6 already mounted as I need a full summer set which look quite rounded at the corners from what I have seen but you can never be 100% sure before fitting...

Tire Wheel Building Automotive tire Tread



Worse case is i guess to resort to 3mm thin shims/spacers to push them out just enough to clear the struts but not foul the fenders?
 
#34 ·
I went with ET41, order is updated! 😬😬 Wish me luck!

Haven't yet ordered tires as I found the wheels in another shop for a lower price which allows me to buy separately from my more expensive (but preferred) local tire shop.

Still I was very much settled for Asymmetric 6, their performance in dry and wet, response, noise, wear, price are exactly where I want them. Are you saying I should reconsider? But I don't want to go PS5 again, and Contis are quite more expensive. Maybe I can order just two at first to make a test fit?
 
#36 ·
I'm currently at a dead end regarding which wheels to pick for my summer set and ordering is due in order to have them here by April. Requirement is to go with a 18x8.5 wide wheel as I don't feel 245 on 8J would work well at the front axle in terms of response and steering feel. OR a 18x9.0 with a 255 tire (tight fit but supposedly working on lowered xDrive).

The designs I am after resemble the 763M, but I'm not considering cheap replicas due to questionable/random quality so...

Leggera HLT: Not coming in wider than 8.0 for 18" (WHY OZ???)

Bola FLC: No stock of GLOSS BLACK 18x8.5 in the foreseeable future (WHY BOLA??? It's so many months it's out of stock but still...)

Bola B19: No 18x8.5 in foreseeable stock, only 18x8.0 (as above)


What other similar design wheels that come in 18x8.5 Gloss Black would people suggest? I guess at this point only more expensive models (ie. over 400EUR/wheel) would be in stock/available?


I don't want to end up going for Protrack ONEs in 18x9.0 and 255 but I might just have to do that.
BOLA FLE are the ants pants. Fabulous. Front: ET40; Rear: ET45. Here in Hyper Black.
 

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#38 ·
Btw, you might wanna get a set of arch guards with the AS6 as they pickup anything, thought somebody threw a bucket of pebbles against the side of the car the first time I drove on an unpaved carpark haha.
 
#40 ·
I've put the OZ summer wheels on this morning and did a quick check to see how much wiggle room there is between the wheel and strut with the springs settled in after a short drive.

The method was rather quick and dirty with a stack of post-it notes. A 10mm stack could be moved freely between the wheel and strut, 11mm had some resistance and 12mm was a no go.

Based on these crude measurements a 255 at ET50 would definitely not fit on my car as it is 15mm closer to the strut than the 245 at ET40. Maybe it could just fit with ET45 but highly likely only with some arch rolling.

I assume lowering the car frees up some space towards the strut at the cost of loosing space in the arches.
 
#41 ·
I've put the OZ summer wheels on this morning and did a quick check to see how much wiggle room there is between the wheel and strut with the springs settled in after a short drive.

The method was rather quick and dirty with a stack of post-it notes. A 10mm stack could be moved freely between the wheel and strut, 11mm had some resistance and 12mm was a no go.

Based on these crude measurements a 255 at ET50 would definitely not fit on my car as it is 15mm closer to the strut than the 245 at ET40. Maybe it could just fit with ET45 but highly likely only with some arch rolling.

I assume lowering the car frees up some space towards the strut at the cost of loosing space in the arches.
Compared to 245 ET40, wouldn't 255 ΕΤ50 be 10mm more tire towards the strut plus 10mm even further due to +10ET, 20mm closer? how do you calculate 15? Just curious what am I missing here.
 
#42 ·
At what hight does your M140iX sit on the H&R springs?

With OEM springs mine is at 34.5cm on all four corners measured from the top of the fender to the centre of the wheel cap. So its nicely level at the moment, the MP springs would lower it 1cm and the H&R 2.5cm front and rear whereas the Eibachs would introduce a rake as it lowers it 15mm at the front and 10mm at the rear.

So according to the specifications of H&R your car should sit around 32cm on all four corners.

Ps The 255 tyre only sticks out 5mm om either side vs the 245, combined with the 10mm less offset it totals to the mentioned 15mm ;)
 
#44 ·
At what hight does your M140iX sit on the H&R springs?

With OEM springs mine is at 34.5cm on all four corners measured from the top of the fender to the centre of the wheel cap. So its nicely level at the moment, the MP springs would lower it 1cm and the H&R 2.5cm front and rear whereas the Eibachs would introduce a rake as it lowers it 15mm at the front and 10mm at the rear.

So according to the specifications of H&R your car should sit around 32cm on all four corners.

Ps The 255 tyre only sticks out 5mm om either side vs the 245, combined with the 10mm less offset it totals to the mentioned 15mm ;)
It's roughly 325mm center-to-fender front and back, maybe 1-2mm difference at most.

PS. You're absolutely right, I forgot to divide the extra tire width by 2...
 
#45 ·
By the way, on Friday we test-fit the 245/35/18 Asymmetric 6 on the 8.5J ET41 BOLAs that arrived. The shock clearance was... shocking (pun intended).

From very rough measurements it looks like 3-4mm max up there due to the super chunky inner sidewalls of the Asymmetric 6, but no actual contact it seems (just...), so I was glad I added 1mm more from the ET42 i was considering originally (thanks @marco_polo ) and maybe ET40 would be fine and probably not rub against the fender. I didn't have any fender rubbing over bumps which I can only attribute to the smaller overall diameter as it's just 1mm inside than my "rubbing" setup of 8.0J ET30 225/40 so no other reason i can think of.

So we decided to keep those tires and order 2x of the same for the back and go with a square setup as desired from start.




matt gunmetal looks awesome ( i think) on the car but one thing we noticed was a couple of wheels looked a bit "wobbly"? When mounted on the balancing machine the worst one showed 100g imbalance on the outside face and I could swear I was seeing a small area of the wheel being "off" every time that particular area went round... really small but the eye could catch it. Tire fitter said rotating the tire w.r.t. the alloy could help so we did that and the new balancing result came out at 20g off inside / 70g off outside which apparenly is better? Rest of the wheels showed from 30 to 55g off all on the outside but another one also had this very small "wobbly" area I described.

It's not something I had to deal with before, or maybe no other tire shop ever told me so not sure how much of an issue I am facing here. Tomorrow the 2x additional tires arrive and we are balancing and fitting all 4 wheels and test-driving so maybe it will go away, just anxious as to whether such deviations are to be expected or should be a concern/reason to seek replacement (it will be terribly slow as I;m abroad...)

I will post some updates tomorrow.
 
#46 ·
Was about to ask haha and then saw your post, good news on the correct fitment.

Take it easy btw with the first hundred kilometers with the AS6, my traction control went nuts the first long 270 corner coming onto the highway. The rear kept stepping out with the traction control trying to correct it which made the rear going in and out a dozen times, not a fun experience with 100 kilos of wheels sliding around in the car haha.

As for the imbalance in the wheel; my fitter (also) uses a Hunter GSP9700 which uses force matching to align the imbalances of the rim with the imbalances of the tyre so they partly cancel each other out. They will also do dynamic balancing with strips on the in and outside to correct for any left over wobble, one of my OZ rims also needed a little correction with one single "strip" on the inside.
 
#47 ·
Will try to get them to do this (tire to wheel imbalance cancelling) tomorrow before final fitting, but essentially it just moves some of the imbalance towards the inside, the total amount of it is roughly the same.

I have to say I did expect more from BOLA but let's see how they end up and how they drive first...

How do you mean about the first hundred KM? Are the AS6 more special in terms of bedding-in for some reason? Or you are only referring to less traction available at first?
I interpreted your post as the shape needing to bed-in or similar.
 
#49 ·
So 4x 245/35/18 Asymmetric 6 were fitted today on the BOLA FLC 18x8.5 ET41 (no way to confirm this requested ET value as wheels write: "ET25-45" on them). First, the good:

a) This combo fits fine both inside and outside. Inside it's very tight but there is maybe 3-4 mm strut clearance. Outside, there has been no rubbing at all against the fender when driving over the same bumps where on 18x8.0 ET30 with 225/40 there was constant rubbing when compressing hard. Front is practically flush (maybe 1mm left or so) and back is a few mm inside but still no need for spacers whatsoever (y)

b) The 245/35 has brought back some needed arch gap to my car as with H&R springs and the bigger 225/40, there was practically zero arch gap. So even with little loading the tires were hidden inside the arches at the back before.

c) Subjective, but despite my obsession with gloss black alloys for years, the matt gunmetal is such an amazing colour and I am thankful to all the car buddies that insisted on going for that over gloss black. It has given the car a lot of OEM+ aggressiveness without looking "generic/cheap". It also changes so much depending on light angle and intensity from "dark silver" to "light black" without ever looking like any of those two extremes. Even in these photos below under extreme sunlight, they can look almost black from an angle. The gunmetal tone is thankfully a bit on the darker side which I love but the design is clear at all times and never disappearing. I am really in love with how the car looks after this.

d) The steering. It has become noticeably lighter and more direct it was hard to believe it at first and convince myself it's not placebo. Sport+ steering feels like Comfort on the previous winter alloys which were very similar weight to OEM 436M, coming in at 11.7kg each. The FLC were weighted at 8.5kg so a good 3.2kg down per corner. The whole front end feels like a 80kg bag of sand was strapped on there before and now ditched.


All perfect then? Well...

I wrote already about some weight imbalance noticed at the test fit and today they had done the balancing before my arrival to the shop on all 4 trying to get the best results, I don't know how much deviations were present (I can of-course go take a look inside the barrels) but, a small vibration comes on at around 90mph (detected on Autobahn which is very close to me) and goes away at 110mph. It's not strong and thankfully it's at speeds that you can stay away from on daily driving but it still is extremely annoying to have on a brand new set of wheels and brand new set of tires. I will go back for some further balancing, wheel swapping etc but that combined with the fact the bolt holes have some metal burr left on them from drilling, shows a poor/sloppy machining job from BOLA.

Could it be the tires fault? ( a friend suggested this), then what options do I have if I want to completely get rid of it? rotate the tire again relative to the alloy? Machine-rectify the alloy?As i said it's not a huge issue but once you notice it then you are just waiting to notice it again every time you hit those particular speeds and it does my head. Once I was doing these speeds and realized I had not thought about it, and then immediately noticed it 😒

Another friend suggested simply trying a different shop (that fixed a similar issue he had) for a new balancing although I have been satisfied with that particular shop for years so it would be a surprise to find out they could not do it properly this time.

Overall, very happy though especially with fitting (size/ET combo) and how the colour works on the car, as well as the handling benefits but I just want to make this 100% perfect. Pics following:









 
#50 ·
Thanks for the extensive write up @mlcman! A year back I went with the Bola FLC 18x8 ET40 since I was too worried it would be too tight with 18x8.5. I fitted Bridgestone Potenza Sport 245 on a square setup and they look a bit oversized but I like it.

Anyway, I had the exact same issue as you. A slight wobble on one of the rims which could not be balanced out fully. I love the steering feel and I would say that the lighter rims also improved the handling. It also gives some peace of mind to know that the xdrive transfer case doesn't have to deal with any difference in rolling diamater at all.

How have you found them now after driving a while?

/A fellow Swede with an M140i xdrive, same colour.
 
#51 ·
Hej! Well if you also had the same I don't think I will be getting another BOLA set again... seems it happens a little bit too often to be a coincidence.

Agreed about the improvement on the steering feel and response, not sure it's because of the lighter rims or the change in scrub radius but it is definitely better, and that's why I have not replaced the wheels despite the slight wobble/vibration between 120-150km/h. That been said, I complained a lot about this so they are sending me replacement wheel, let's see if that's any better.

After a few thousand KM I can say that it's definitely not a big issue and it does not do it on all roads either. but on some particular ones it will still do it. Looking forward to the replacement wheel.
 
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