2021 M3 owners- have you checked behind the aero wheels yet?

[Grae Chivalier]

In the rush to pick up the car in the last couple days of the year, I didn't bother pulling the aero wheels to see behind them. Almost 2 weeks later, I decided to pull them for the first time. Here's what I found:
- deep pit/scratch mark near the center of the rim (not sure how to repair this yet). It's not large, about 3mm by 2mm, but no paint and can see the base coat.
- Some of the spokes have bad scratches- I think I can buff these out with some polishing compound. They're not deep.
- Found one of the aero wheels ready to fall off. The others were a bit of a pain to pull, but one of the rear aero covers basically fell off when I was about to use a bit of force to start pulling. Heard a metal ring fall as well. Turns out whomever put this cover on during assembly, forced it on hard and bent one of the center tabs almost flat that hold the center retaining ring. Luckily I was able to slowly bend it back up (I should have been smarter and heated it first to lessen the chance of snapping off) and put the retaining ring back on. But I have no faith that the center would have any tight grip.

I plan to get the rims powder coated if I can find a shop that will remove and remount the wheels while on the car. Most shops I looked into only take the bare rims. I don't have the tools nor space to jack up my entire car to do this. Once I get them coated, all the issues found go away- except for the loose aero cover.

Considering my car is just shy of 2 weeks old from pickup, but already has over 100 miles on it, I might try to get an aero cover replacement and paint touch up to fill in that bad scratch/pit mark before rust forms.

 

[mattAUT]

hmm, no rust in the center yet. i would recommend to apply zinc-spray there, and not too less of it!

 

[leonar40]

That looks like an issue during casting that a simple QA check should have caught before the car left the factory. Bummer.

 

[P3dStealth]

Within spec

 

[Gsxr150]

Don't worry though...the stock is worth more than all automobile companies combined.

 

[Grae Chivalier]

hmm, no rust in the center yet. i would recommend to apply zinc-spray there, and not too less of it!

Zinc spray? Haven't heard of that before. I'll check out our local Autozone store for something like that.

Thanks!

 

[Uncle Paul]

Thought those rims underneath the Aero covers were alloy.

 

[Mrcarcrazy]

Thought those rims underneath the Aero covers were alloy.

They are. When the people above are talking about rust they are referring to the axle and axle nut/hub area. (Except the original poster, he/she is confused.)

for those interested another way to prevent that from rusting is a spray called fluid film. Jeepers use it a lot. Seems to work pretty well.

 

[mgoblue19]

I haven't yet. Fallen in love with the look of the new aeros on my car.

 

[JCtx]

I just did that, to check wheel torque, since many reported loose lug nuts. I was pissed off to find a very deep (to the aluminum) 'V' scratch on one wheel. The stupid tech tried to install the aero cover wrong, with the metal tabs over the freaking spoke, rather than in-between. All other wheels were fine. The covers were fine too. I'm sure dealer would send me to hell if I ask for a new wheel, so will just leave it alone. If somebody reports finding a good match for the charcoal wheel color, please post it, so buy it, and touch it up. It won't look like factory, but better than the aluminum silver color now (very visible). Lug nuts were only slightly under-torqued, but none was loose. The freaking wheels were filthy, and car only has like 300 miles, and haven't even touched the darn brakes. Wonder why. Maybe factory did some panic braking tests? Who knows. But cleaned the wheels on the inside too, except right by the calipers, due to lack of space. All is reinstalled now. MUCH easier to re-install the covers than to remove them; it was a b*tch.