I do not believe there can be no "defects," any machining process can produce out of tolerance units. What I do think is that it is much more likely that a wheel will be subjected to abuse and fatigue over time, and failures are much more likely to result from driving over objects, getting curbed, not running the proper pressure, etc than from out of tolerance machining or a metallurgically inferior slug of aluminum alloy. Because of that, I think you will be hard pressed to get a dealer to accept financial responsibility for a cracked wheel. Hence I wanted to see what the dealer said. To me this comes down to probability. Defective wheel is possible, but not probable.

That's fair enough, but since I am the only driver of the car; and can tell you for certain it has never been abused or hit anything in the road, and since it seems to have cracked while running down a clean road; and since it is a hot weather car running for the first time in cold weather, I gotta think it is a defect in the wheel.

Getting the dealer to see it my way is another story.

If they say it's due to physical damage as in running over something, then simply ask them to show you the tell tale signs of impact. It should show either a slight bend in the rim at the crack, egg or other damage at that point in the tire's sidewall... or at the very least a black smudge of rubber on the outer edge of the rim's bead/lip at the crack from the impact.

Thanks for the advice!!! I am still waiting for them to get the new wheels in so I can drive down to swap it in.

This is my wheel...
 

Took the X in today to have the new wheel mounted and to leave the old one for evaluation...

...this is my wheel on crack...
 

As you can see from the pictures, the wheel is still perfectly round, it's lip is not bent flat, nor does it show any other signs of bends or impacts...

...get the picture?
 

...if you look closely, you can see that the crack is not just in the rim, it continues avross the interior of the wheel as micro crack. Personally I cant see how this could be conscrued as an abused wheel.

Verdict is in, BMW says the wheel is bent and shows signs of impact. I don't see it myself.

When I get the wheel back, I will have to have it mounted on a machine and spun so I can see it myself. There goes 7 big ones.

I will consider a claim against the state (although I [edit: heard not felt] the wheel crack, I don't remember feeling any impact. I will say that the road at the locaton has been recently patched) or failing that my ins.

You could get that fix for around $130 look for a wheel repair shop.

Thanks,

I know. But that is the same reason I did not purchase a repaired wheel. I don't trust them.