are you serious? lol dont you have original wheels? interesting. well thanks for the follow up! enjoy the X :)

No sir, it drives perfect.

Well, that was the interesting part...I guess I didn't. I'm the second owner. However inside the rim it still says "BMW". I understand that the replicas would not and would rather have "Made in China" or something similar. So while they MUST be replicas to need the rings, there's nothing that shows they are. That part is still a bit of a mystery.

And so it turns out that I must have had the hub rings and the tire shop just tossed them out when they changed the tires. They eventually replaced all 4 tires (replaced the new tires they put on, with another new set of 4) as you see earlier in the thread. You'd think somebody would have thought of that during the 6 times I brought it back there.

The mechanic at my new and favorite Indy shop knew it before he got all the lugs off the first tire he checked. Unreal.

Congrats. Great it is fixed. If the wheels are OE then there should more markings than just BMW. Usually it says when they were produced and who produced them. BMW does not make its own alloy wheels. Could be Borbet or one of the other OE producers.

If somebody strapped on wheels from another type of BMW with 74.1mm hubs they'd still be OEM but just not the right centre bore for your e53. Or somebody used those wheels on a vehicle that had larger hubs and had the wheels bored out to fit. Either way you are fine with the hub rings.

Thanks Tri! I believe the only markings were "BMW".