Spacers/adapters, installing BMW wheels?
 

Okay I tripped across a beautiful set of BMW wheels/tires for a very good deal, and was under the wrong impression these were compatible with Mercedes and purchased the set. Perfect size tire and wheel for my W211 wagon.

Now I find adapters prolific and cheap but for Mercedes they are either a tricky fit or discontinued or not made, and in any case not cheap but twice the price. There are comments about using them on other forums but its not widely done. And the good shops dont seem to touch this option.

My suspicion is that its the litigious nature of MB owners and the wisdom of sellers to just say no to this market, as well as their purist leanings that avoid anything potentially damaging to our darling MB babies.

No worries, I can easily sell the set and make a little in the process but I really like these very fresh high-end tires and the beautiful alloy wheels which are a great improvement for my car, so if there is a fitment option to adapt the wheels with minimal spacer and a bolt adapter to the 5 by 120 BMW spacing and hub diameter which is also just a bit more than the mercedes, please help?

And if this is a bad idea with nothing but complications and damage to offer, let me know. But I see the spacer market is prolific for all the Hondas and jeeps and corvettes and BMW/Audi and Porsche so I suspect its just this Mercedes market that is the issue, not mechanical engineering but the socio-economics of Mercedes.

Thanks again for the great forum.

learning from the spacer makers that hub-centric is the way to go
 

So they tell me the spacers must have hub lips to center the wheel just the way original wheels center tightly on the entering hole, and not just studs and bolts, thus more costly and critical. Okay we'll see.

I did try going that route once. In fact in an almost identical scenario. It never got off the ground. I don't recommend it. It is possible to spend a lot of effort and and up with a ride feel that is not better. I sold the wheels.

Thanks for the comment on your experience C. Donor. Yes its a bunch of work re hub diameter and all the details of offset and Im not trying to improve handling but just needing replacement for old tires, one with a broken belt that became critically useless. And the whole set needs replaced, and I found this great bargain on these nice wheels with new tires worth 150 each and my original wheels are also pretty bad.

I find the offset on the BMW and Merz wheels is identical and the new tires slightly less wide, exactly same height, so there is definitely room, and the chinese mfgrs work hard to clarify all the details in hub bores on both the Mercedes hub and the new wheels which can sometimes be different front to rear. Its indeed a mess. And BMW uses two sizes of centering hub as well. Some are 72.6 and some 74 so its all got to be correct. But in the end I should have a $1000 set of wheels/tires for about $600. And I learned stuff.

I always try to follow through on a question, results wise, and report that the Far East to the rescue with perfectly fitted adapters for the Merz to BMW bolt pattern and with the hub bore perfectly matched to the BMW size which they confirmed with me before sending, and I now have perfect top quality wheels with a superior tire for a great deal and the new wheels even have a stem lock on the air valve so you cant break it off filling it, as I just did with my mercedes OEM spare. And the spacers do add just a bit to the wheelbase in width although this wasnt the reason I got them. And the ride is great and noticably flatter. Same wheel diameter because its a larger wheel but shorter tires, so the fit is perfect. Anyway its not always a failure. Im delighted an now just need to deal with the BMW hubs on my wheels which dont belong on a Merz.

love to have 4 for my w140, at least 12mm, as seems all new car's have positive E.T. wheels like honda's

Not share litigious nature of MB owners and the wisdom of sellers to just say no to this market

Can you share a photo of your car with these wheels? I have some H&R spacers on my W123 in the rear, but they do not change the bolt pattern. I've always liked BMWs factory wheels. There are so many nice 15-16" options where as with Mercedes there are around 3 and all are very rare and expensive.