Buckled Wheels & Discs 2 months into a 6 month warranty? Rights?

Pacaya

Hi all.

Interested in anyone's advice out there good, bad or differ.

I purchased a car recently, just 2 months ago, with 6 months warranty. It's a 08 BMW 325 MSport. The car was/is my pride and joy and rewward after a period of hard work.

The car has been driven from Dublin to Wicklow, Belfast, Kerry and the Midlands. Motorways and Primary/Secondary roads. The car has not been driven extremely. On a trip to Kerry for a funeral, on arrival in Kerry the rear passenger mentioned a noise. I called the garage who told me to tighten the nuts, problem didn't disappear, and brought to garage.

Got a call today to say 2 rear wheels buckled and discs damaged, €3k to repair not inside warranty as the car left the forecourt serviced and roadworthy.

I'm disputing this that its unacceptable that this should happen so extremely with easy driving in the last two months.

I'm interested in anyone who may know what my options are. Reading the warranty it does not say that wheels are out of warranty, it does say the warranty is void if the car is driven 'excessively'. The garage have confirmed there's no visual evidence of kerbing and service department said oh because its run flats and big alloys its a higher risk of developing this. Bull.

I'll be contacting a solicitor and independent assessor on Monday for next steps, as per consumer legislation the product (used or new) should be fit for purpose and I do not believe it has been. I advised the principal dealer of this who then said oh look we'll work it out and get a good price on the parts and labour.

Interested in thoughts, and thanks for reading this far.

Drummerboy08

Wheels don't just "buckle" by themselves.

Have you hit a pothole/kerb/other solid object?

When you say the discs are damaged, what exactly did the garage say?

ongarite

Are the 19" alloys with run flats?

Bigus

I think go ahead with the assessor and hold off on the solicitor til you see what the results are.

Pacaya

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Wheels don't just "buckle" by themselves.

Have you hit a pothole/kerb/other solid object?

When you say the discs are damaged, what exactly did the garage say?

I totally agree don't buckle by themselves. I'm disputing that there was already some underlying problem for this to happen with my regular driving. I'm not about to fork out on that type of machine for myself and not be anal about driving it, it was like a child in a buggy, I'd go over ramps crawling. Nothing. No recollection of a big potholing incident. You can feel lots of bumps on Irish roads with run flats, but do not remember a single incident and would be hands up if I had, and wouldn't have done a 4hr trip to Kerry if anything had been up.

Discs - that the buckled wheels caused damage to them that in turn need to now be replaced.

Are the 19" alloys with run flats?

Yup.

Reputable dealer too btw, not main BMW though.

ongarite

On my mobile but a poster here a while ago had similar problems with 19" alloys with run flats on an e90 and got them replaced free of charge after inspection by BMW.
Pretty common issue in the UK.

fasttalkerchat

I've heard bad things about run on flats from my mechanic's tyre dealer. I'm surprised that they could buckle new alloy wheels though!

Neilw

Wasn't there problems with some 19" bmw alloys cracking, think it was hilighted in the UK. The wheels were cracking on the inner lips.

Maybe this is related to the op's problem.

How are the rear discs damaged?

Nissan doctor

The Runflats on the 19" wheels are utterly unsuited to most of our roads.

They are extremely soft and very easy to damage. Its actually rare to see these wheels NOT damaged.

Pacaya

Pacaya wrote: »

........... The garage have confirmed there's no visual evidence of kerbing and service department said oh because its run flats and big alloys its a higher risk of developing this. Bull............

It's not bull, unfortunately.
How much mileage have you done in the two months in it?

bazz26

BMW may replace the rims if there is evidence of a defect, ie stress cracks. However a buckle is not a defect but as a result of driving on poor roads or kerbing which is hardly BMW's fault.

Pkiernan

Pacaya wrote: »

I called the garage who told me to tighten the nuts, problem didn't disappear, and brought to garage.

Got a call today to say 2 rear wheels buckled and discs damaged, €3k to repair not inside warranty as the car left the forecourt serviced and roadworthy.

Were the lug nuts quite loose?
If they were and you tightened them while the wheels were on the ground (i.e. with the weight of the car on them), then you may have inadvertently caused the problem.

mickdw

Its worth a second opinion too. Maybe you dont have both disc and wheel issues.
Either way, I wouldn't be spending 3k repairing wheels and rear discs with pads. Also, if it took a rear passenger to notice this issue, I would suggest perhaps it has been there but you didn't notice it until now.
I know your car probably has wider rear wheels and tyres than the front but if you could temporarily swap the rears onto front as an experiment (will they fit) you would find any wheel warps when on the steering axle immediately.

Pacaya

Cheers for the feedback.

Yes, 19" alloys and run flats.

When I tightened the nuts they were not really that loose, only tightened one wheel also. So don't think that made a difference.

The garage are saying I must of hit a pothole, but for me its too much of a coincidence its 2 months in and this problem has developed, and not even one wheel, two wheels?

Going to get an assessor to look at it tomorrow. But once I start with assessors and then perhaps solicitors the € all starts to mount up.

Is there any use in getting the garage to talk to BMW and push back on some manufacturer defect, its not a BMW dealership, or bring the car to a BMW garage for 2nd opinion?

Pacaya

mickdw wrote: »

Its worth a second opinion too. Maybe you dont have both disc and wheel issues.
Either way, I wouldn't be spending 3k repairing wheels and rear discs with pads. Also, if it took a rear passenger to notice this issue, I would suggest perhaps it has been there but you didn't notice it until now.
I know your car probably has wider rear wheels and tyres than the front but if you could temporarily swap the rears onto front as an experiment (will they fit) you would find any wheel warps when on the steering axle immediately.

Got a job card from the service dept today. The work that needs to be done is replace 2 wheels and apparently the buckled wheels caused damage to the rear differential which needs to be replaced at a cost of 1600. I've an independent guy taking a look over things tomorrow, advice is that it would be remarkable for this to happen within a week of me hearing the first noise.

Anyway I'll let you know how I get on.

mickdw

Would a slight buckle that only a rear passenger noticed be severe enough to cause damage to the diff? I find this odd. Is this the same dealer who checked originally.

Nissan doctor

It is simply impossible for a wheel with a buckle that you couldn't even feel while driving(or any buckle for that matter) to in any way damage the differential.

I'm not saying there isn't something wrong with the diff, but it certainly wasn't the wheels that caused it.

Independent check of the car definitely needed IMO

lomb

Sorry to hijack the thread but which tyre shops around Dublin can test wheels for buckles as well as balance them? I need 4 done on a Passat

Nissan doctor

lomb wrote: »

Sorry to hijack the thread but which tyre shops around Dublin can test wheels for buckles as well as balance them? I need 4 done on a Passat

Any tyre place worth its name and which has a balancer can do this for you.

Veloce

I bought a car from a dealer last year with 3 buckled wheels. (18inch Alfa Blackline wheels). I didn't pick up on it during my test drive as I only got the car up to 80km/hr. I noticed a vibration above 95km/hr. I got them balanced myself, this didn't improve so I brought it back to dealer after 6 weeks. Explained the situation and they sent the wheels for repair under warranty. They were pretty sound they could have said i hit a pothole myself. I just explained that I was driving the car primarily on the motorways..

Hope you get it sorted OP.