Not even close to the same concept. BMW sells a car with Michelin tires on it. NOT BMW TIRES!

Not sure what you are talling about here, but all michelin tires are made by michelin. There are no "OEM tires" (ie made by Michelin in france but branded "BMW"...) Michelin may carry a manufacturers certification- Like MO for mercedes, Nx or Porsche or the BMW star... NOT THE SAME AS A BMW BRANDED TIRE.

You are getting confused between Michelin tires made by michelin with BMW certification that Michelin sells to BMW as an OEM.

If you want to see how BMW feels, open up a factory making copies of BMW wheels in the US or any country in the EU (ie where they have courts...)

A

Fair enough, I agree with you that they are different and your point is correct.

I'm comfortable with my purchase and significant savings over purchasing from a BMW dealer. It turns out these wheels are 'takeoffs'... yes, used wheels but definately original equipment from an X5 (that description should avoid any confusion over OEM, OE, etc). They were inspected by my local independant tire shop (no repairs, no refurbishment, etc), balanced (minor adjustments I'm told, I have no idea if that makes a difference), mounted, and driven on without any problems.

If there is some hidden manufacturing flaw, it's still a BMW wheel. From your message I take it that your keen on product liability and having a 'big company with deep pockets' (paraphrasing) behind your product. These are still BMW wheels, used or not. Regardless, product liability is very complicated, or so I'm told, so I'm not sure always having a big company with big pockets works in your favor. They also have deep pockets to defend themselves and show why your excessive wear and tear, reckless driving, and whatever else caused the failure (not that any apply to you, but they would try).

However, I'm not an attorney so maybe BMW would just hand you tons of cash, apologize, and then recall all vehicles in the world with the quality defect voluntarily without any pushback. I mean they were so forthcoming with the HPFP recall right?

Then again, if you just meant the money they invest in the quality and safety of the wheel, then we're in agreement since they're BMW wheels that have the deep R&D dollars invested in them.

Tires are of a totally different requirement. Remember Ford and Firestone fiasco? Very strict requirements
Wheels are different. Aftermarket wheels are not allowed to copy exact original design with specifications. They can however make the same wheel design with changes in the offset, color, etc. They cannot say "Made by or for BMW" w/out permission but they can refer to BMW by name and refer to an original BMW part number. They can even use the logo w/out the name. Reference to the many copied center caps.