[e36]

I've been in a BMW family my entire life. Starting with my father's e30, uncles' e28s, the list continues on to rides in e34s, e36, e46, e39, e53 and e90. Now, I will be taking order for a F80 in just a week. So, I have a real passion for BMW.

I recently sold my TSX, so I've been driving our e34 around town- that car drives like a dream. Last night, I decide to take out the e90 330. I'm getting onto the i78 on-ramp and hit a fairly large pothole. Bam! I think the tire goes flat, but this is not an ordinary "runflat" feeling. I get off the road and into a Walgreens' parking lot (I have to give them a plug since they let me leave my car in their lot over night). I know this will be brought up- how fast were you going? I wasn't going fast at all.

On examination, the rim cracked/split COMPLETELY in half. I've never seen this before. I lurked the forums and found that BMW has quite a few lawsuits for "cracked" rims. None of the pictures have been this bad.

In the many years of driving in BMWs, I've never seen anything like this. Actually, I've never seen this in any car. I realize that potholes are getting worse. But, in my opinion, this is not acceptable. I feel like BMW has gone from that "forever-classy" car that will go 300,000 miles to a "temporarily-exhilarating-then-let-someone-else-deal-with-the-headache" car.

Pics of massive pothole to come when I get out of work.

[ShocknAwe]

Never seen anything like that before. Looks like a perfect crack around the circumference of the barrel? Sounds like a 1-case defect to me.

But yeah, most BMW wheels are catastrophically heavy cheaply produced garbage.

Some are made using better processes, but those are the optional premiums or wheels on M cars etc.

[CookMaster]

Your wheel has significant curb hit damage on the rim. If these impacts were significant enough, they would have initiated the cracks that helped cause the failure. I don't think this is a design issue. It is a age/wear issue.