[zipphreak]

Recently hit some potholes that were unavoidable and went almost to china. Small vibrations were noticeablely present driving a few weeks after hitting them, it's a lot worse under 20 MPH, and over 60 MPH it's just a consistent vibration.

Brought my car into the dealer as I have some wheel and tire protection that I purchased with the car new. I asked them to look over the car and find out what is causing the vibrations. They said their tech found four bent wheels. I must have really got lucky on this one. Best part is they said it's not covered under the tire/wheel warranty because they are still holding air. They have to call the warranty company and the service advisor has to talk to the service manager to find out the final word.

I'm going to be extremely mad if they come back and say nothing is covered.

[overcoil]

Do u have any warranty documentation to browse ?

We're you hard on brakes when you ran over the potholes ?

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by zipphreak

Recently hit some potholes that were unavoidable and went almost to china. Small vibrations were noticeablely present driving a few weeks after hitting them, it's a lot worse under 20 MPH, and over 60 MPH it's just a consistent vibration.

Brought my car into the dealer as I have some wheel and tire protection that I purchased with the car new. I asked them to look over the car and find out what is causing the vibrations. They said their tech found four bent wheels. I must have really got lucky on this one. Best part is they said it's not covered under the tire/wheel warranty because they are still holding air. They have to call the warranty company and the service advisor has to talk to the service manager to find out the final word.

I'm going to be extremely mad if they come back and say nothing is covered.

So the tire wheel warranty doesn't cover the wheel? :

[darkfaker]

If you buy the warranty from bmw. they should cover both tire and wheels. once your wheels are bent, they should replace immdet.

[zipphreak]

I was not braking at all for these potholes, some were on the highway. 70-80mph, others were on normal routes 50-60mph. But they were seriously deep and the sound the car made when you went over them was cringing. I just didn't see them in time. You really have to increase your following distance between the car in front of you and pay more attention to the road surface that the cars in front of you which is not always the best idea

I have some documentation for the warranty that i am going to review. But i have to wait for that call Monday to find out what type of game they want to play here. I bought the extra insurance and they should be fixing this.

[zipphreak]

If you were curious, here are the warranty docs I found from purchasing the car.





Read this one thoroughly, this is where I actually have some ammunition.

[overcoil]

Zipp, the documents aren't showing on my iPhone.

[zipphreak]

thanks, updated those images as attachments instead of external links.

[pete1713]

Seems pretty clear your bent rims are covered by the policy, all you have is a $50 deductible, since it is (or should be) one claim.

[overcoil]

The comment in the initial post with the dealer stating 'the tire holding air' as a condition seems rather strange.
See what happens, if they give you a hard time and it's at the point your tired of negotiating be sure to get a refund on the policy.
Hope they take care of everything.

[overcoil]

Originally Posted by pete1713

Seems pretty clear your bent rims are covered by the policy, all you have is a $50 deductible, since it is (or should be) one claim.

Exclusions of: operator error - is four wheels reasonable or unreasonable, that is the only caveat.
Exclusion of: maintained roads - should relate to public roadway w/ normal commuter traffic.

[pete1713]

Originally Posted by ScottSinger

Exclusions of: operator error - is four wheels reasonable or unreasonable, that is the only caveat.
Exclusion of: maintained roads - should relate to public roadway w/ normal commuter traffic.

Yeah, they could argue the points. I'd argue right back at them, though.

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by ScottSinger

The comment in the initial post with the dealer stating 'the tire holding air' as a condition seems rather strange.
See what happens, if they give you a hard time and it's at the point your tired of negotiating be sure to get a refund on the policy.
Hope they take care of everything.

Run over the pothole one more time and they won't hold any more air

[zipphreak]

Love it. Yup if you read the entire verbiage they could play it either way.. The comment about the rim not holding air sounds like BS from the dumb service advisor not understand the tire/wheel policy at all. I've had trouble with this guy before, he's kinda a douche bag.

Operator error for failing to swerve at giant potholes and thus causing four bent wheels. I could argue out of that one. They can't prove I intentionally hit them The bends are not even visible from the outer part of the wheel. I imagine the rim is bent towards the middle.

Potholes are not caused by failing to maintain roads, they are caused by natural circumstances. Water/ice in existing cracks/crevices and then cold to freezing temperatures. Potholes can be made worse by failing to maintain roads though

Two things might happen;

Everything goes easy, I pay the fifty bucks and they file the claim and replace all wheels.
They deny the claim, then I argue, and I get my warranty money back (~$1400). Then I buy another set of wheels, or get the current ones straightened (I'm going to get a second opinion this week from another company to determine if all are bent, and much to fix them).

[zipphreak]

But at-least I can drive the car with the minor bends that are in them now.. It's not like it's that bad, a little vibration like the wheel balance is off. But I gotta get them to fix this shit because it's the right thing.

[zipphreak]

Dropped the car off today, and they are going to call in the claim to review.

I did find out from the SA they will only cover bends that are statically visible. Meaning the wheel is not moving. Which bugs the crap out of me because it says nothing like this in the warranty. I spun the wheels earlier, and one is way worse the the others. I would say 3 have minor runout, while the right rear tire has some serious runout.

It's not visible pothole damage that you can see the outer rim of the wheel folded in, literally the tire/wheel must have bottomed out pushing in on the wheel causing the bend. If you spin the wheel you can see it go out of round.

[MikeG12]

I would not drive it much with the vibration. It will beat the hell out of the bearings and damage them. BTDT.

[samtnel]

I hit an epic hole in the road that blew out both right tires and bent the rims and front strut. BMW wheel coverage said they would pay for the tires but not the rims. They said the rims weren't bent ENOUGH, even though the SA said it vibrated at all speeds and would cause long term damage to the car. I think it was one degree away from being "bent enough," something ridiculous like that.

So I had my insurance cover everything and canceled the coverage/got my money back. Those coverage plans are scams. Maybe it says somewhere in the fine print about degrees of damage but that's not how they sell it. It's unethical.

[zipphreak]

They are supposed to have the safe-guard claims guy look at the car tomorrow (its an outside company bmw contracts). I agree these are a total scam, more i look into it the more i feel violated. I feel some yelling is in order for the BMW SA, and the upstairs office guy that sold me this sh*tty policy.

[zipphreak]

Funny, after calling safe-guard and trying to get their details of the policy. They don't list any of their fine print/regulations on what is / isn't considered a bend on the customer policy. But I got a call back from the dealer this morning and apparently all 4 of my wheels got approved to be replaced. They said one was major, and the three others were minor. He actually sounded kind of surprised though like he couldn't believe it either.

Ohh well, It probably helps that I was ready to fight and doing the research I still would never buy one of these policies again. This cost $1400 and they are replacing four wheels, but next time they may not be so nice.

[FSociety]

My friend damaged his front struts and BMW told him it is not covered under warranty since his tire/rim was damaged due to a pothole. So he has to go through his insurance deductible to pay for that damage wow.

[zipphreak]

Lol i was concerned about strut damage from the noise these potholes made.. How do you check for strut damage?