Love 35d but confused about the wheels

[brian5]

Originally Posted by Ag4.8

You can buy the wheels on ebay. Many buy replicas with lots of success. I have the premium sound and I am glad I did. Lots of discussion on this. TO me the DVD changer is worthless. You are going to use the ipod adapter. Who cares if it plays movies when in park?

<<snip>>

This is OT but I disagree with you on DVD changer. Yes, it's pretty useless for watching movies but it's great for the hundreds of music tracks that one can put on the DVDs. I don't use my iPod adapter -- that's a clumsy, time-wasting and inefficient device.

[atat88]

rh71 im thing about gettin 20" replicas too, what negative experience did u have with the fakes?

[mtech8]

I think eventually larger wheels (20"+) will be offered on the 35d here in the US. Maybe BMW just wants to give the 4.8i that slight edge for now. I mean if it were offered (for the same upgrade price) the OP wouldn't have this problem, the OP would probably just go for the 35d with the 20" rims. I mean better fuel economy with roughly the same amount of power, not a very hard choice for those looking at value. I'm expecting it to be offered at the end of the E70's life cycle to entice buyers.

Just get the 35d and spend the $3-4K on the upgraded wheels. The savings in fuel in the long run will easily offset the $3-4K. At 15,000 miles/year, you'll most likely save about $700-$800 a year.

I ran the numbers on FuelEconomy.gov.

I think these are relative fair numbers. My 4.8 never gets 16 combined. In those driving conditions I'm looking at 13-14 mpg. So realistically your looking at spending even more on fuel. Don't know about the 35d. (I set the fuel cost to be the same assuming that diesel cost less in the summer and more in the winter).

Plus not having to go the gas station all the time would be really nice.