[Jon D]

Having heard mixed reports about wheel insurance, it was with a degree of scepticism, that I bought a combined wheel and tyre insurance policy when buying my 640i last September.
Following recent events, I'm now very happy to discover that my misgivings were totally ill founded.
A while ago I curbed my front LH rim so I contacted the insurance company, who immediately emailed me a claim form. I completed it, sent them some pictures and very soon thereafter the wheel was collected by their appointed repair agent in Dundee. They machined out the damage, but did not properly clean the wheel and applied clear lacquer on top of brake dust. When I called they apologised and arranged for the wheel to be collected for rectification. This time, instead of just paint stripping and refinishing, which was all that was required, they took another, totally unnecessary, cut off the entire wheel face. This completely altered the spoke profile and, as a final insult to injury, they painted the wheel in the wrong colour.
At this point I relayed the entire story to the insurance company and the happy result is that today I had a brand new OEM 20" 'style 356' diamond-cut wheel fitted by my local BMW dealer.
The name of the insurer is Premia Solutions Ltd., Warwick - I cannot recommend them highly enough.

[steve-p]

It sounds like you got good value from the policy, but presumably it was quite expensive to take out? It's very rare for me to damage wheels - the last time was an AMG wheel several years ago which was quite badly kerbed. It cost £75 + VAT to get it professionally repaired through the MB dealer with the proviso that if anything went wrong with the repair, they would assume responsibility and replace the wheel. The repair was perfect though. I guess a pothole could destroy a wheel completely, in which case the council should pay. Unless the insurance was remarkably cheap, I think I'd be more inclined to take what I consider to be a small risk myself

[Jon D]

Originally Posted by steve-p

It sounds like you got good value from the policy, but presumably it was quite expensive to take out? It's very rare for me to damage wheels - the last time was an AMG wheel several years ago which was quite badly kerbed. It cost £75 + VAT to get it professionally repaired through the MB dealer with the proviso that if anything went wrong with the repair, they would assume responsibility and replace the wheel. The repair was perfect though. I guess a pothole could destroy a wheel completely, in which case the council should pay. Unless the insurance was remarkably cheap, I think I'd be more inclined to take what I consider to be a small risk myself

Granted that, at £600 for 3 years cover for tyres and wheels, it wasn't cheap, but when you consider the replacement costs of around £350 per tyre and £600 per rim, I thought it worth the outlay.
I had 18" wheels on my F10 and, in 2 years of ownership, they remained undamaged. However, I thought the 20" diamond-cut wheels with very low profile tyres (about 2") on my 640i would be far more susceptible to curbing and, as I discovered, easily done.
To summarise - cost of insurance £600, cost of new rim £600; in my math that puts me pretty much even-stevens and I still have 30 months cover remaining.
There's also the 'peace-of-mind' factor and, following this experience, I consider it was money well spent.

[steve-p]

Peace of mind is a good benefit. I guess nowadays the risk of destroying a wheel or two completely is very much higher than it used to be. Once upon a time, if you were careful you could be fairly sure your wheels would never be damaged, and if they were, it would be repairable. Avoiding the present epidemic of potholes at speed is not always an option, and that's out of your control to a great extent.