With improved function! No, really!
(I know, I know, my car is dirty. It’s been raining constantly, with today being a rare exception)
In the 9 total years I’ve owned this wagon and its predecessor, I’ve had an ongoing Craiglist search for ‘bmw wheels.’ Which is how I’ve ended up buying only ONE set of brand new summer tires and spending just $800 total on snow tires in 9 winters of, shall we say, “doing donuts and powerslides constantly.” I’m not buying crappy mismatched garbage, either. Only nice, full sets.
The best deal I ever got was from a retired guy who, after a single winter (09-10) with his new 328xi sedan, decided he was spending his future winters in Florida, and sold his barely-used 5-spoke Sport Edition wheels with (don’t remember the brand) snow tires for $300. I used those tires for 3-4 winters, and used the wheels all the way up to last winter when, for the third time, I had to have a shop re-mount the tires because they all leaked several psi per day due to the corrosion of cheap wheels exposed to many NE winters.
When I got the blue wagon, it came with its own set of snows, which only just became sketchy toward the end of last season, so I sold those on craigslist - on the corroded old wheels - for $150. Funny, the guy who bought them was a mechanic who himself had just bought a basket case E46 for just $100. He had fixed all its issues himself and now just needed rubber to pass inspection and get around for the summer.
The set you see above was another gem of a craigslist find, where a guy with my exact car bought them in April of 2018, then for some reason decided to sell his car in June, so he separated the winter wheels to help mitigate his losses. He spent $860 on them in April and drove just 600 miles on them (I believe it); I bought them in June for $500. He literally put on white gloves to help me load them into my car. I don’t even own white gloves. He also had a track-only 330i ZHP in his spotless garage.
So, these wheels are now the nicest part of my car; definitely the newest. The tires are Dunlop Winter Sport, and from a short test drive last night they’re not bad on dry pavement. I’m sure they’ll dig into the snow just fine.
BRING ON THE SNOW