[fahrvergnuegen]

I just got my X3 and really am enjoying the car. Since we get a lot of snow and ice here, I purchased a dedicated set of winter tires and rims. Since the dealer wanted almost twice than what Tirerack was asking for the same tire, I ordered them from Tirerack.

Normally I would have put on the tires myself but didn't realize that I need a jack pad tool so I had the dealer put on the new tires as I couldn't wait for the pack pad tool to come here in the mail. When the dealer put on the tires, I was told that the lug bolts included in my shipment from Tirerack are too long. They used the OEM bolts that came with the car instead.

While everything is fine, I decided to put on one of the bolts myself and see what the difference is. The new bolt sticks out a little bit more than the OEM one and comes out of the recessed hole but is protected by other parts of the rim. Also, the OEM bolt only takes 8 full turns until it is fully engaged, while the new bolt takes 12.5. I read in a post on there that it should be at least 9.5 to be considered withing BMW spec.

At this point I am leaning towards taking the OEM bolts out and replacing them with the new replacement bolts. Not sure what the dealer was talking about or is there anything I am missing?

Attached are two pictures of the two different bolts by themselves and installed in the rim (the silver bolt is the new aftermarket bolt and the black one is the OEM BMW bolt).