Hello all, I'm a new member but I've had my g37 since 2015. Now my infinitI is fine (thank god) but I have a BMW 428i on lease that expires in literally 1 weeks and I hit a curb yesterday. Here's the damage:






The wheel is bent inward, so tire shop says I have at least replace the shock and tire in order for it to be drivable. That alone is $350. Then he says I have to shell out $600 for a new control bar because that's bent too. This is just bad timing bc I'm at the end of my lease.

However, in the Last pic you can CLEARLY see that most of the bolts are missing from the wheel except for the wheel lock nut. Apparently the last time I serviced it At the Dealer, they FORGOT to put back on the bolts!! My tire guy said the clear corrosion in those holes clearly show they bolts werent there for some time, and possibly Contributed to the crash, which makes sense since I was making a left turn and it did feel unstable at the time. Is there any way I can blame this on the dealer...or am I gonna have to pay to fix this??? I really feel the dealership is responsible for sending me home with a wheelot with almost no bolts in it. Sorry for the long post but this really sucks and I hope theres a way out that doesn't involve me signing a huge lump sum check to pay for all this, esp at the damn near end of the lease! Thanks for reading, have a blessed day

Hmmm, that does suck. Glad you weren't hurt. Cars can be replaced, you can't. As far as blaming the dealer, they should get blamed, but proving they failed to re-install all but the anti-theft lug nut might be difficult, especially if you didn't notice it immediately upon pickup and notified them. I'm sure they have a legal language that protects them on the repair order/invoice you might have signed. Might want to check that fine print. If it happened on the way home from the dealer, I think you stand a much better chance to get the dealer to pay than if it happened, say, several weeks later. Expect a dealer to claim they did re-install them and that someone else stole them later. This is why a lawyer is in a much better position to advise you on the viability of going after the dealer than non-lawyers like us. As far as the lease contract is concerned, if you can't get the damage repairs covered via insurance, (it was technically an accident) and the lawyer strategy doesn't pan out, then you have limited options. If you and your mechanic are confident it can be properly repaired, and not just "driveable" with a shock replacement/control bar/alignment, then that seems the best route. Keep in mind that's actually not an outrageous repair cost for a newer bimmer. Difficult to escape that they're expensive cars to repair. The risk is if that repair doesn't fix it correctly and the lessor notices it upon return, then you're pretty much either buying an expensive car that still needs to be repaired or reimbursing the lessor to repair it. Good luck.

Thank you for the reply. Also on the day of the crash, that morning I was at the dealership to get some service done but I wasn't due, but they offered to give me a car wash and re-air my tires, so they did that.

After that I went directly home, and on my making a left turn onto the freeway on ramp i felt the wheel unstable and hit the curb. Tire was literally burning rubber on the freeway,I honestly thought I damaged the radiator but it was just tire smoke luckily .

Since the lease expires in a week, should i just tow the car to the dealership the way it is, and insist they're at fault? That's the plan I'm thinking of going with. I will consult a lawyer and am prepared to go to small claims court, I think I would win but i will consult an attorney. Thank you.

As far as towing it to the dealer "as is" and pointing the fickle finger of fate at them, I suggest you hold off 'til you hear what the lawyer suggests. In many cases, the lessor is not the dealer.

I'd think the dealership staff would notice four missing lug nuts during an air up and likely during a car wash. I also see no reason to remove the lug nuts for either, unless they offered to rotate the tires as well. For them to be missing since a previous service and to be missed twice seems less likely. Corrosion happens on all lug nuts I've seen, so you'd have to remove the opposite wheel and take photos of that corrosion to get a comparison and make a decision if there was considerably 'more' corrosion. All but the missing lock nut seems like a theft attempt or a tire rotation attempt that was stopped when they couldn't find the key for the locking lug.

The wheel was attached (by at least one lug nut) during your accident right? And you hit a curb? I'm not sure how the two could be related under normal driving conditions. I don't know your full story and you don't describe the actual accident very well. I can't tell if you had the accident after home or after the dealership the way you write. I also can't tell if smoking happened before or after the accident. You don't speak in a timeline and I think you'll want that sort of organization for court.

I'm not sure going straight to accusation and lawyering up is the best move in your position, yet. I'm relatively certain you'll need proof (and I'm just not sure you have that yet) not just accusation and speculation. You'll need a good written explanation of what happened up to and during the actual crash. Will the mechanic make a statement that your lug nut corrosion means they were for sure missing a while? The car's black box probably has your acceleration and traction data, maybe proximity sensor data and tire pressure, will that help or hurt your case? Was the car wash and tire pressure recent? If so, can you casually call them up and mention a few missing lug nuts and then see if they say they found some on their counter laying around? That would be some proof.

I do think you're fortunate to be okay. I think you're fortunate to have such affordable damage to a BMW. I hope you get enough information to get to the bottom of this and that justice prevails.

I doubt the dealer would help you at all.
What about an insurance claim?

Did you guys see this news article? BMW takes their liability for accidents pretty seriously it seems.

https://jalopnik.com/bmw-races-nearly-5 ... 1822999156

In this case, with only the lock lug left, BMW can simply insinuate someone may have tried to steal the vehicle and stopped because they could not get the lock lug off, or numerous other things, and the courts would not find them at fault. I also have issue with the tire shop claiming there is "clear corrosion" showing in the holes which is an indicator the four lugs have been gone for quite a while....there is no way you were going to be driving any long distance with just a single lug nut on a front wheel.

Now, IF they happened to do a safety inspection as part of their "wash the car and air the tires" and missed that lugs were missing then you absolutely have something to go against. The guy who washed the car is a doof for not noticing lugs missing when he washed the wheels but I doubt that could be equaled to their negligence either. Otherwise I don't see how you will be able to put blame on them directly.

Dunno if you can find some correlation to distance to failure where they were the last ones to have it before the failure or not. Hell, based on what you wrote, they could simply point to your tire guy and say "see, the lugs were not there if there was corrosion" and there goes all liability.

audtatious wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 30, 2018 5:55 am

....there is no way you were going to be driving any long distance with just a single lug nut on a front wheel.

I agree. I have rotated my tires before and forgot to torque one wheel. Just used the impact. Got on the highway afterwards and within a couple miles I could tell there was a problem. Had to pull over and tighten the lug nuts.
Having only one lug nut on the rim would make that wheel shake all over the place.