Photo: bimmerpost
For €7,300 in Germany and $8,150 in the US, if you’re a real, hardcore enthusiast you can get Carbon Ceramic Brakes on your BMW F80 M3. That seems like a steep price tag, but it’s only the beginning.
You’ll also have to get 19” wheels as the rotors used on CCB brakes are larger in diameter than the conventional, steel ones. That means you get to spend at least a thousand more on bigger rims than the 18” ones that come with the car as standard.
Sure, they look better but not everyone has silky smooth roads to drive on. This demand is necessary though, as we said because otherwise the rotors and the calipers just wouldn’t fit inside the barrel of the wheels.
However, it looks like even 19” wheels might be too small according to recent reports coming in from around the world. Owners apparently are experiencing issues with the clearance in all parts of the globe.
It was reported on the biggest forum for BMW owners and there are currently around 200 comments posted regarding this issue. As it turns out, small rocks and pebbles can get stuck between the caliper and the wheel creating small grooves on the inner barrels. They are usually 1 to 2 millimeters deep and might not seem like a big deal.
However, when you stop and consider the fact that the barrels themselves are not more than 5 mm thick, reducing that depth by 40% all around the circumference doesn’t look good. It might even affect the car’s safety considering that M3s are taken to the track quite often and driven to the limit.
So far, various BMW dealerships have dealt with the problem but no official solution has been issued by the company. The ‘fix’ was to replace the wheels under warranty, free of charge. However, as many people reported, the same issue happened as soon as they drove off the lot with the new wheels.
Of course, the easiest way to solve the problem once and for all is to force the customers to order their new M3s with 20” rims but that is just unacceptable for many as they don’t have perfect roads to ride on every day of the week and they wouldn’t be comfortable.
And that’s also a solution that would leave current owners in the dark unless they want to go with aftermarket solutions that, in turn, they’d have to pay for out of their own pocket.
Since the clearance between the stock calipers and stock wheels is just around 5 mm or less, aftermarket manufacturers are already offering options with up to 8 mm of clearance without going into 20” territory. It will be interesting to see if adding Carbon Ceramic Brakes to your configuration will force you to get 20” wheels in the future. At the moment of the writing of this article, it wasn’t the case.
Sure, they look better but not everyone has silky smooth roads to drive on. This demand is necessary though, as we said because otherwise the rotors and the calipers just wouldn’t fit inside the barrel of the wheels.
However, it looks like even 19” wheels might be too small according to recent reports coming in from around the world. Owners apparently are experiencing issues with the clearance in all parts of the globe.
It was reported on the biggest forum for BMW owners and there are currently around 200 comments posted regarding this issue. As it turns out, small rocks and pebbles can get stuck between the caliper and the wheel creating small grooves on the inner barrels. They are usually 1 to 2 millimeters deep and might not seem like a big deal.
However, when you stop and consider the fact that the barrels themselves are not more than 5 mm thick, reducing that depth by 40% all around the circumference doesn’t look good. It might even affect the car’s safety considering that M3s are taken to the track quite often and driven to the limit.
So far, various BMW dealerships have dealt with the problem but no official solution has been issued by the company. The ‘fix’ was to replace the wheels under warranty, free of charge. However, as many people reported, the same issue happened as soon as they drove off the lot with the new wheels.
Of course, the easiest way to solve the problem once and for all is to force the customers to order their new M3s with 20” rims but that is just unacceptable for many as they don’t have perfect roads to ride on every day of the week and they wouldn’t be comfortable.
And that’s also a solution that would leave current owners in the dark unless they want to go with aftermarket solutions that, in turn, they’d have to pay for out of their own pocket.
Since the clearance between the stock calipers and stock wheels is just around 5 mm or less, aftermarket manufacturers are already offering options with up to 8 mm of clearance without going into 20” territory. It will be interesting to see if adding Carbon Ceramic Brakes to your configuration will force you to get 20” wheels in the future. At the moment of the writing of this article, it wasn’t the case.
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