Renewing Member

[John in VA]

While the "cool kids" will choose based on looks & price, with the many styles that BMW offers you have plenty of choices for a quality product. Not to say that BBS & Ronal aren't great products - I have them, too.

[JamesAustin]

While the "cool kids" will choose based on looks & price, with the many styles that BMW offers you have plenty of choices for a quality product. Not to say that BBS & Ronal aren't great products - I have them, too.

To be honest, the whole custom wheel scene is a pet peeve of mine, because it's all about bling, and the closest anyone ever comes to thinking about functionality is weight. There are other ways to make a better wheel that nobody even tries.

Example: The C4 (1984–1996) Corvette wheels had directional turbine blades around the outside designed to work like fan blades and pull air out from under the car at speed. This made a measurable difference in handling, drag, and efficiency. But most people hated them because the design only worked in one direction, and when combined with the rears being much larger than the fronts, meant each corner had a unique wheel to keep track of (and keep in inventory). Chevrolet abandoned the idea almost immediately, and today even many C4 owners don't know about this. The only other time I've seen this idea in use was on a Ferrari show car from decades ago; they took the standard Ferrari 5-blade wheel and simply angled the blades. But Ferrari never put that in production...

Another example: Some of the new generation of carbon-fibre wheels (that each cost more than most cars) have hollow spokes & centers. This is more of an effect of building them from carbon than a deliberate design goal, but the result is that when inflated, there's a higher air volume than with a conventional wheel, which means that tire pressure holds up longer.

I wish more designers would spend more time thinking about things like this and less time just playing with the visuals...