Style 177, with wheel arches (Pics now available).
 

Okay,

So I go to discount tire last night to get my wheels put on. So excited. I then travel over to my friends’ house to put on the retro-fit wheel arches. What a mistake.

My friend and I got 3 hours into it, only to find out that they use oversized, specialty, plastic pop-rivets to install the wheel arches. Had the whole bumper off and one wheel arch off. Had to abort after a trip to Home Depot, only to find out that the bit for the rivet gun we needed would have to be purchased at a specialty store. It is now 9:00pm, not going to happen.

We ended up using the 5 regular plastic rivets (ridged kind you push in) we had in the kit, just to barely put back on the stock wheel arch (we had to destroy the factory ones to pull it off), it takes 8 of the other kind. Hope it holds until I can get it in to the dealer.

It is totally a pain in the arse. You even have to CUT your factory bumper via a template just to put on two of the rear pieces.

All this just to be LEGAL! I would highly recommend just paying the dealer to put these in. Which now after all that wasted time, it looks like I am going to have to do.

And the arches don't even look that good!

My two cents.

Sorry to hear, post some pics when its complete

Will do. Car just to dirty right now. Looks kinda funny running new, clean, shiny wheels on a dirty car.

Retail on the OEM kit is $900.00 I can get you a fairly better deal though if you would like?

:xoutpost:

I have look closley at the 4.8is flares several times and can't find wear they are hiding the gold to make them cost $ 900.00. My BMW parts guy could not find the part #'s or he just got fed up with me asking. They look like there held on by double sided tape.

They actually replace the whole arch. You get the factory arch with the extender pieces snapped in permanetly. You would think that they are made of solid platinum for the price. I kept looking at them in the garage going $900.00, you have go to be kidding me. Again, if you would like I can check on price for you? Should be better than $900.00.

sorry to be a newbie
 

What is a wheel arch and why do you need it to be legal. I live in Virginia and I have never heard of this in an inspection....

FYI I just bought some 20' staggered wheels. Should I be concerned?

The wheel arch is basically a flare piece that widens the piece of plastic that goes around your wheel well. This makes it so that you don't end up throwing rocks up at peoples wind shields. If you look at a stock 4.8 or 4.6 with the 20s on you will see that they stick out further.