Hive assistance requested.
So I got an email from my Dad today, after taking my parents' 2011 BMW 535i 6spd in for 'annual service'. Car was built in Nov 2010, and delivered around Jan 2011 (they had to special order it). It has 19,000miles.
Service department said (quoted from email) "three wheels are bent top to bottom, are oval shaped. specifically both fronts, and one rear."
Dad reports "no vibration at speed", but that BMW is claiming/documenting a possible "safety problem"
so, question the first:
Is this something the hive has heard of before? Or is the dealership trying to take advantage of my septuagenarian dad?
question the second:
any recommendations for independently verifying this claim?
question the third:
if we decide to replace them... stay OEM, or go aftermarket?
Does smell fishy but it could be real.
Easy to independently verify. If they have the car up on a lift, walk over and spin the tire by hand. Getting it going semi-quickly, and look at the inside rim and outside rim. If either is out of round you will see it.
Or take it to another shop if you prefer, anyone should be able to check a wheel for roundness.
Probably legit. I've flat-spotted Audi rims, they seem to be soft but can be straightened. The wife's Audi currently has one or two bent rims from potholes back in the spring. The vibrations don't show 'til approaching 80 mph and she never noticed, I did.
So your Dad's probably in the same boat, doesn't go fast enough to notice. I'll be visiting RimPro here in MA again, I find their quality & pricing good http://www.rimpro.com/. Not sure where your parents are but I hope there's a reputable wheel repair specialist nearby.
If you decide to replace, be ready for sticker shock on OEM's.
Yep. The inner lip will have some flat spots. I wouldn't consider it a safety thing, unless they are really bent. Search aluminum wheel repair in your area. If you can't find a reputable shop, send them to Regina Wheel Works.
we're out in NoVA... so I may wait for the snow to pass, and then grab the jack and crawl under it to take a look at the inside lip.
I got some further detail... service was quoted as $600 for fixing the 3. Dad's a bit worried now that the wheels "aren't strong enough for their needs"... although, this might be related to them being "TuV'd" wheels... and I think they're required to have this kind of movement if they hit a pothole, iirc.
Just don't drive in the District. I think you guys have smoother pavement than us but that wouldn't be hard. I remember being quoted approximately $170 for a total wheel refurb from a popular chains franchise in Fredneck MD. 
I've seen wide variance in how tolerant wheels on modern German cars are to impacts. The 17" Style 5s on my old E39 were nearly indestructible, but the 17" Sport Package wheels on my father's Jetta TDI Sportwagon were made of soft cheese - he killed three of them, along with the tires, in half a winter. If the wheels on the F10 are really that soft, I'd look to find a set of -1 diameter takeoffs to buy a little more sidewall (that's what we did on my father's car).
Can't spell German without BBS. 
ChasH
New Reader
12/8/17 10:47 p.m.
I've had many wheels straightened; but only because of the vibration. If there's no vibration and the wheels hold air, I wouldn't do anything.
If he's not jumping kerbs and slamming potholes, could the rims be flattening out due to sitting too long in the same spot?
Set of steel rims with snows for winter. Then send out the OE rims for repair?
Acceptable run out, radial and lateral of the wheel,not the tire is generally 1.5 mm.
mad_machine said:
If he's not jumping kerbs and slamming potholes, could the rims be flattening out due to sitting too long in the same spot?
maybe?
I'd think, though, that'd we'd see that problem in the tires first... they should bend/deform before the wheels from that kind of... situation
in reply to nutherjrfan:
It's been a while since I went driving downtown... but a bunch of the roads out this way haven't been touched since they got laid down in the late-'70's / early '80's... so there's been some pretty gnarly potholes all about. They mainly take it out for odd-trips, and stuff where they can stretch it's GT-legs a bit. It gets babied most of the time, so I don't see them hopping curbs.
everyone else, thanks for the input... helped give me a direction to help guide 'em!
I remember one of Audi's 80s sedans had wheels like these. Definitely looked apropos.
mad_machine said:
If he's not jumping kerbs and slamming potholes, could the rims be flattening out due to sitting too long in the same spot?
Man, I hope not. That's only 1g of loading. I know we design suspensions for hits of around 3g. Aluminum shouldn't be quite that fluid that it flat spots at well under the design load.
To me it sounds like dealer up sell. And even if it is a real thing since it is not showing up in their use of the car and it seems to be a fair weather fun car I would be inclined to decline service. If they do get new rims make sure you take the old ones with you. I am sure someone at the dealer is thinking about a free set of rims that may or may not need some minor reworking.
alright, looks like Dad is looking at replacements... although might still fix the OEMs... we'll see.
so, new question I figured I'd ask...
what kind of cost am I looking at for BMW to align the new TPMS sensors to the car?
You mean swap them from the old to new rims? It should be insignificant, maybe another 5 minutes while they're swapping the tires.
No, more like if we order a set of wheels and tires together (tires are original to the car... so probably good time to replace before they degrade too far)... and have 3rd party Tom's installed at that time, then have the whole package shipped out to us.
or is there some secret button pressing sequence to make the BMW do this on it's own? (Yeah, I know, wishful thinking).
Go to the vehicle settings menu, and select the TPMS initialization option. There is no special coding tool required.
With BMWs, the thing to watch out for is matching the sensors to the build date for the chassis. There is often a change during the life of the design, and if you get one of the sensor packs for an early date chassis, it won't communicate with a later date chassis.
Speaking as a guy that currently owns and uses something like ten or twelve sets of OE BMW wheels, both for road and race course -- if they don't feel funny driving down the road and they don't leak air, I keep using them with no ill effects. I live in DistMarVa and I surf plenty of potholes all the time.
I only managed to bend a pair bad enough to merit replacement once, but I crashed a pothole from hell and I thought I had broken suspension parts. Even then, one of the two wheels had a noticeable vibration but still held air and I think I tracked it for 3 or 4 days before I got it swapped out.
