Ever seen wheels drilled like this?

[george graves]

[mtechnik]

HAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA George.

[nrubenstein]

I was thinking the same, but if you look close at the lug bolt on the right side, you can see threads, which means no sleeve.

They are probably fine to drive on, given that most of the load is put on the centerbore, not the lugs. Still sketchy that you bought them this way new. I would return them and have a reverse put on the payment if needed.

Wrong. Next to no weight is carried by the center bore. It is purely for centering the wheel on installation. If the wheel moved around enough to be supported by the bore, you'd have a hideous vibration.

[george graves]

HAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA George.

I know! It's one thing to do this to factory wheels...I don't care if they say BBW of fooundu (spelling?) on them either. They all would be made to BMW's specs, and TUV approved.

It's a totally different thing to do this with cheap Chinese wheels.

OP, if you have wife and kids, now might be a good time to up your life insurance policy.

[lostbeachbum]

OP, if you have wife and kids, now might be a good time to up your life insurance policy.

Double down on that insurance Policy!

[TwoJ's]

I agree, it does look lazy. But I wonder how over-engineered wheels are - and how much metal that thing is grabbing if it makes a difference? I honestly don't know.

But I bet with something like a wheel, it's failure is like 4 times it's max load that it will ever see...or something like that. So it does make you wonder.

I would bet that factor of safety is much higher than 4 even.

[CrusherCurtis]

So apparently this drill isn't entirely too uncommon (although for spacers is makes more sense):

[TwoJ's]

With hubcentric wheels it is not nearly as critical as you would intuitively think to have a large cross section there. The compressive stresses from torq'ing them down and from the torque delivered by the half shafts pales in comparison to the stress from impact loading that is mostly carried by the hub.

Having said that, I would not run wheels like that. Especially when they are made in China where their material properties are probably half as good as they spec. them.

[redhatpat]

You'll be fine. Just don't ever hit a pot hole at speed. Ever. Those two ovalled holes will open up over time and the bolts will loosen up.

I would never use those wheels.

[MR 325]

I'd get a refund ASAP. Scary.

[moatilliatta]

That's a weird bolt pattern. You're missing some wheel bolts...

[Tismael711]

Say it ain't so. ESM sold u a wheel drilled like that? I can understand guys being so anxious to get a set of wheels put on their car that they don't care about the quality of a redrill....but that is crazy. ESM is supposed to be a good company that cares about the E30 community. I'm sure we must be getting half the story here. What's the real deal?

[CrusherCurtis]

Call awry and ask him yourself. I'm not the happiest about it, but he did say it would be fine and its common and so that has held true

[Stephen]

You guys are being fussy. This type of drill is extremely common with JDM wheels, in 4/5x114.3, and has been for many years. Provided the craftsmanship is up to par, there is nothing to worry about.

edit:after looking a bit closer, are those holes actually overlapping?

[Teaguer]

Say it ain't so. ESM is supposed to be a good company that cares about the E30 community. I'm sure we must be getting half the story here. What's the real deal?

Who told you that fairy tale??!!
Ari and his shoddy shop are low life scum that feed off noob owners like yourself and the OP.

Half the story? What the real deal?
The deal is that fucking Ary takes his POS made in China knock-off sub-par wheels and makes a shoddy drill (not even a "red-drill") and sells them to customers who are paying for new wheels.

edit:after looking a bit closer, are those holes actually overlapping?

Yes. The holes are overlapping each other with no metal separating them.
No fill, no sleeve, nothing. Not even metal between the holes.
Just asking for a trainwreck to happen.