Replica Vs. OEM
 

I recently purchased a 2002 X5 4.4 with 35000 miles at New Century BMW in Southern California. Purchase price....$36,000...out the door price...38K! That includes extended warranty for up tp 100k miles or until June 2008 and an extended maintenance warranty until the same year or 100K. Not bad, huh! Anyways, I've begun to do my own modifiactions to the car. Recently I purchased a 4.6 front and rear spoiler and slapped those puppies on immediately...took me no longer than an hour to do. Im really trying to stick with the OEM 4.6 look! I did not get the flares (Spelling???), but it still looks pretty good. Now comes the wheels and tires???? Ive tried relentlessly to pick up some OEM 20" wheels like the one on the 4.6. However, Ive been pretty unlucky. People are just not selling them, or they're asking fo way toooooo much! So I started looking at some replicas. I found a pair from this manufacturer called AFS wheels located in Canoga park, CA. Theyre selling this package: 20" bmw replicas 9.5...10.5 staggard mounted on Toyo tires for $1985.00 out the door. Im sure they'll waive the tax if I pay cash... Anyways, My questions to you all is Replica or OEM....Lets keep the price in mind as well. Are the replicas tooo heavy? Do you think they'll be out of round?? Will I experience vibrations ??? Are the Toyos bad tires? Please help a brotha out and give me some advice. Also, if you know of anybody selling theyre 4.6 20's, Im definitely interested. Thanks for your time and GOD Bless!


By the way, This is the greatest site known to mankind! :)

Go OEM if you can find them in your budget. However, AFS does produce some good wheels. I have a set of staggered ZR1 vette replicas and they have been PERFECT for 5 years. Not even a hint of a vibration, perfect balance, and the finish still looks perfect. Not that it matters as much, but they were also very nice to buy from, very polite, and follwed up to see if I was satisfied. Good luck!

I have the replicas with Toyos and I've been pleased with them. Only had them since March, so can't give long term review. The tire themselves are very quiet, grip very well, and look cool. I'm planning to use year-round, since we don't get that much snow here in MD, but kept my 18s just in case.

The tire were mounted and balanced before they were shipped, so in theory all I had to do was plug-and-play. I did have them checked when I had my tire guy swapped out my wheels and they were fine.

The price you were quoted is pretty good, as I paid about $200 more shipped from CA to MD. I used TruckAccessoryOutlet on eBay (Jeff Jarvis - Manager) and my experience was awesome. There have been some folks who did not have a good experience with the replicas, but many more pleased than pissed from what I remember. The weight IMO isn't that big of an issue, although with gas prices soaring, MPGs may be affected.

Many have had great success going the replica route and have saved quite a bit of $$ in doing so. See http://www.xoutpost.com/articles.php?...ticle&artid=93 before you buy, though, for some good buying tips.

:goodluck:

you guys are the greatest! I LOVE this SITE... By the way, any of you guys live near Southern California????

I went with the replica 20's and couldn't be happier. They look great, quality is awesome and the price was much cheaper then buying OEM.

I have the staggered 20" 4.6 replicas + toyos and after noticing some vibration I had them rebalanced and they were checked and were unbalanced(specially the 10.5" rears).....................Looks like you are going to have to rebalance the replicas from time to time?I am going tom sell replicas and buy the oem..............