Lacquer peeling on 1 year old Alpina wheel... advice?

[Bob Fossil]

Evening all,

Whilst cleaning the D3 BT tonight I noticed that the lacquer is starting to peel on the off-side front alloy (19" Classic). You can clearly see where it's peeling (it is leaving the paint exposed underneath) - obviously this isn't something you'd expect on any 15 month old alloy wheel, let alone a BBS item (IIRC, this is who makes the Alpina wheels?). All the other wheels are fine.

So, two questions:

1. Has anybody else experienced this on Alpina Classics so new?

2. What should I do now? The car is still under warranty, so I presume I just raise it as a warranty issue via Sytner?

Thanks in advance,

BF

[DennisCooper]

Hi there,

I 'think' there's various manufacturers of the Alpina wheels, possibly BBS, theres Ronal as well.

The whole 'lacquer' thing irritates me for wheels, not just Alpina's, but my Hartge's in particular and of course every other wheel under the sun out there that has this finish. It's not something anyone can really guard against, lacquered wheels WILL start to peel at some stage. The usual thing is that as your wheels spin and of course the car is moving, small stones will hit the surface of the wheel and 'pit' it. Once the pitting goes through the layer of lacquer water will set in and thats it, the lacquer will go cloudy and start to 'peel' as well. When the wheel was manufactured, theres a small chance the machine doing the spraying had 'just' run out or something and theres a thinner than average - but within tolerances, depth of lacquer on this particular wheel. By all means trundle back to the dealer and ask them what is permissable. I'd have thought they'd pay for a quality refurb and from that, you can tell them to sort all four out as a matching set. There's some very well reputed wheel refurbishers, so in effect you'd have a brand new set of wheels on the car for around £275-300 which they should cover. I suppose you could push for a brand new wheel, but then you'll have one new and 3 old and as the older ones will 'look' ever so slightly 'used' the new one will stand out.

The Alpina's design means the whole wheel face most likely needs the lacquer. My Hartge's it's only the 2 inch 'lip' that has it. So with the 'extra' surface area of them, there's an increased chance of a stone chip hitting a spoke in the future and you getting the same issue again. At that point, it'll be refurbish time again

Just the way it is with lacquered wheels I'm afraid..

Cheers, Dennis!

[Bob Fossil]

Thanks Dennis, most useful. I completely agree with you on the frustrations of lacquered wheels... bit Is uppose it's the price you pay for them looking all shiny! I'll ring the dealer tomorrow and see what they've got to say about it.

An interesting side point - I had the wheel off today, and it has BBS markings on the wheel, but Ronal on the centre cap.

[Toilet Duck]

Bob Fossil said:

I'll ring the dealer tomorrow and see what they've got to say about it.

Any money they'll tell you to shove it up your cornhole. Read loads of threads on here about E46 M3 alloys with flaky lacquer; the standard response from dealers seems to be that the finish on alloys is not covered and that the owner should cram any hope of a warranty claim up his/her brown eye. Recently noticed a few lacquer spots on one of my alloys starting to flake so I sympathise. I hope you get a good result from your dealer, if you do then go and buy a lottery ticket as you must be lucky.

[LocoBlade]

I've seen threads on babybmw where people have had 1 seires wheels replaced under warranty for crap laquer, so I can't see why they'd act differently here, or with E46 M3s for that matter, unless its due to their age?

[DennisCooper]

BobFossil,

Any update here?!

I'm 75% that they'll just say sorry, nothing we can do as it's not under warranty, and 25% that they 'might' just cover it.

cheers, Dennis