W213 E Class 20 inch cracked alloy

W213 E Class 20 inch cracked alloy

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Ian-27xza

Original Poster:

217 posts

93 months

Monday 21st September 2020
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Hi All,

It appears that my 2017 W213 E Class has a cracked alloy. It is the rear, 20 inch, multi-spoke. Mercedes have quoted £900 for a replacement.

This seems a little expensive for a single wheel - has anyone had a similar problem and sourced an OEM wheel elsewhere?

Thanks in advance.

unseen

169 posts

161 months

Monday 21st September 2020
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Sorry to hear that. From this website the price seems about right https://www.alloywheelsdirect.net/mercedes_alloy_w...

Ian-27xza

Original Poster:

217 posts

93 months

Monday 21st September 2020
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Thanks for that. I'm accepting the fact that I just need to suck this one up!

The Mad Monk

10,474 posts

117 months

Monday 21st September 2020
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Surely you must be able to get them cheaper than that?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/b/Car-20-Inch-Rim-Diameter-...

Ian-27xza

Original Poster:

217 posts

93 months

Monday 21st September 2020
quotequote all
I did take a look last week, whilst you can get copy wheels that 'look' the same, they aren't really the OEM wheel that I need.

Used wheels seem to go for £300-400. Some have been repaired and all of the ones I've seen online need a refurb, which is about £180 for the correct finish.


Ian-27xza

Original Poster:

217 posts

93 months

Monday 21st September 2020
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The specific part number is : A2134012300

KillerHERTZ

942 posts

198 months

Monday 21st September 2020
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£900 is cheap for a brand new OEM wheel to be honest...

goldieandblackie

232 posts

94 months

Tuesday 22nd September 2020
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Buy a new wheel from the dealer and have your old one repaired and sell it on to claw back some of the outlay, but tell buyer that its been welded.

anonymous-user

54 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2020
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The joke is that they charge this much for OEM wheels and they are absolute st cast alloy boat anchors that are neither light nor strong, and you'll crack the new one soon enough.

My S600 came with a set of "AMG" 20" wheels on, one of the rears cracked in two places and one of the fronts has already been welded up once.

For £900 I'd find somewhere to weld it, it'll be less irritating when it cracks again. I've been quoted between £80 and £100 from two different places to repair this




I'd also consider going on eBay and looking for a set of OEM 18" or 19" wheels that someone is selling to "upgrade". They won't look as pretty but the car will ride better and you won't be dicking around repairing/replacing wheels again.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 23 September 15:34

Ian-27xza

Original Poster:

217 posts

93 months

Friday 25th September 2020
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My previous E220d I ran for 3 years from new, 42,000 miles on standard 19inch wheels and not a single problem, although I do drive quite defensively and carefully. I have no idea about the previous owner from my current car...

The ride quality difference isn't that significant. If I run the 20inch wheels at the lower end of the recommended air pressure all seems pretty comfortable. Just spent 6 hours driving on a mixture of motorways, A roads and dual carriageways. Roads I know well and the ride seemed very similar to how I remembered by 19inch wheels on the same roads, back in March.

anonymous-user

54 months

Friday 25th September 2020
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Ian-27xza said:
My previous E220d I ran for 3 years from new, 42,000 miles on standard 19inch wheels and not a single problem, although I do drive quite defensively and carefully. I have no idea about the previous owner from my current car...

The ride quality difference isn't that significant. If I run the 20inch wheels at the lower end of the recommended air pressure all seems pretty comfortable. Just spent 6 hours driving on a mixture of motorways, A roads and dual carriageways. Roads I know well and the ride seemed very similar to how I remembered by 19inch wheels on the same roads, back in March.
I've never had a cracking issue in many miles on 19" wheels, but two weeks on a Mercedes fitted with 275/35 R20 wheels and I have two massive cracks on a rear wheel and when removing the lot of them I discover that one of the front 255/35 R20 wheels has already been repaired.

Certainly on my car they recommend going +5psi for 20" wheels over other sizes, to keep the thing stiff and compensate for the lack of sidewall. You're more likely to crack the wheel if your tyre pressures are low.

ETA - I also broke 235/40 R18 wheels on a Volvo a couple of times. My grandfathers E-Class is on 245/40ZR19, so I assume for 20" you're using 245/35 R20 tyres? That's an 86mm sidewall on the 20s vs 99mm on the 19s, anecdotally it appears that once you have less than about 10cm of rubber between wheel and road you're far more likely to break a wheel.

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 25th September 14:23

Ian-27xza

Original Poster:

217 posts

93 months

Friday 25th September 2020
quotequote all
Thanks Stickleback.

I had 2 new rear tyres fitted this week, along with the new wheel. The other rear wheel was fine but I've not checked the fronts.

I'm not sure about pressures. One school of thought is that if the tyre pressures are on the hard side that doesn't allow much 'give' if you hit something, with the resulting shock load potentially damaging the wheel. On the other had, if the pressures are relatively low (but still within quoted parameters), this will allow the tyre to flex or give a bit more and therefore dissipate some of the shockloadings. Obviously, there is a tipping point and if I were going to drive at a kerbstone, at high speed, I'd probably want more, not less pressure!

The rears are 275/30/20. The fronts are 245/35/20. Om mt previous 220d with 19 inch wheels the profiles were the same.

The recommended pressures for the rears are 33 psi to 45 psi. I'm running at 35 psi for now....

jj9

1 posts

42 months

Friday 23rd October 2020
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I am on the same set of wheels and ironically read this post last week.
My car has been serviced today and as part of their health kindly identified there are multiple cracks and the dealer wants £3k.

Sheepshanks

32,757 posts

119 months

Friday 23rd October 2020
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Ian-27xza said:
If I run the 20inch wheels at the lower end of the recommended air pressure...
That won't be helpful in resisting damage as the tyre will collapse more easily on impacts and transfer those impacts to the rim.

Paddymcc

936 posts

191 months

Friday 23rd October 2020
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Had the same problem years ago with my CLS that ended up going through 2 sets of genuine 19" AMG alloy wheels due to cracks and numerous wrecked tyres. It got to be a massive pain in the arse with wheels cracking, having them welded, slowly loosing air pressure then welded wheels would recrack on the same welded spots.

Replaced them with an aftermarket set of OEMs 19" wheels which never cracked in the 3 years after fitting.

The mercedes alloys wheels are just crap quality.

Ian-27xza

Original Poster:

217 posts

93 months

Monday 26th October 2020
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Paddymcc - when you say 'aftermarket set of OEMs 19" wheels ', do you mean OEM wheels, as per Mercedes originals or aftermarket copies/style wheels?

Genuinely interested in this one.

Paddymcc

936 posts

191 months

Monday 26th October 2020
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Ian-27xza said:
Paddymcc - when you say 'aftermarket set of OEMs 19" wheels ', do you mean OEM wheels, as per Mercedes originals or aftermarket copies/style wheels?

Genuinely interested in this one.
The brand name of the wheels was OEMS.

https://www.facebook.com/oemswheels/

Excuse the suspension height as i had it on the high setting for washing the car


anonymous-user

54 months

Monday 26th October 2020
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It comes to something when an aftermarket wheel supplier whose domain has expired can make higher quality wheels than MB.

Khanma

1 posts

13 months

Wednesday 29th March 2023
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I also have a 2017 e350d with 20" mulispoke wheels (9J rears and 8..5J fronts) with runflat Goodyear tyres. So far I have had the offside front crack in 1 place and offside rear crack in 2 places. Welds cost me £100 a shot. I suspect that the nearside ones have also cracked as I noticed that they have lost air pressure. The ride despite having airmail suspension is rubbish. I read somewhere that run flat tyres aggravate the susceptibility to cracking. Question: I am considering changing to 19" wheels with bigger profile non-runflat tyres in order to get a smoother ride and hopefully mitigate the risk of cracking. Can I change to the 19" multispoke wheels from a C Class? Do they have the same ET offset? Is there anything else I should consider before taking a leap?