A mini review of the priciest (and perhaps best quality? more on that below) solution to floating heritage center caps.
Yesterday, I received my floating heritage center caps that
IND-Distribution has customized for its customers. They use OE floating center cap cores from the version with standard BMW roundel. Then it looks like they remove the standard roundel from the mechanics and adhere OE heritage roundels in their place with some type of epoxy (more on that below, too).
Nice sturdy and typical IND shipping carton with their signature brown paper shipping tape with the IND logo. Opened the shipping carton to find the box extremely well packed inside with about ten passes around the box with bubble wrap. High quality IND decal inside the box.
Packaging — The floating heritage center caps are in the same pizza box style packaging that OE BMW ones come with in a 2 x 2 layout. The top right has a hole punched through so you can see (and touch) one of them. Based on the P/N on the box, I think this is the OE packaging for the OE “cores.” Definitely shipped well between that sturdy box and IND’s great protective packaging.
Floating Center Caps — Overall, pretty good quality. Generally, there is dried epoxy run from adhering the heritage roundels to the mechanics on two of them. It does look a little sloppy for something at this price, but you can’t see it at all once they’re installed. Fit and finish overall once installed is pretty good.
Also another slight gripe. The product description mentions “a notch” as a result of the production process. To me, that implies one notch. In fact, there are four notches on each one — N, S, E, and W. You can’t really see them when installed unless you’re really close up. If this is what’s required by the manufacturing process, that’s totally understandable; but it should be noted correctly on the website.
Install — They’re center caps. Not rocket science, but you do have to make sure you line them up exactly perfectly before pressing them in if you want the roundel perfectly upright and level. Big thanks to
windtendo who suggested
this locking suction cup with handle to pull out the existing fixed ones. Much better than my previous method — a thin flat head screwdriver with masking tape — and makes for a quick swap.
Bulge — the OE standard roundel floating caps generally have 1 or 2 mm bulge over the position of the fixed ones for obvious reasons. I would say these are about 1 or 2 mm even further out than those. I think it’s because the heritage roundels used were not made for this purpose — they’re likely reworked fixed heritage center caps. The OE standard roundel floating ones are definitely manufactured for this purpose and are thinner, so there is less bulge.
Everything above notwithstanding, these are much better quality than
Bimmer.Plug or any Etsy or eBay versions that all miss the mark in one way or another. They are probably the best and highest quality solution currently available.
I’ll take a moment to highlight this — the package was in possession of the post office 59 minutes after I had completed my order. They shipped out on the Friday before 4th of July and received by me on the following Monday with USPS Priority Mail for a negligible shipping cost.
I used IND’s forum promo code “USA23” which got me 10% off of the $565 retail price. I paid $521 out the door with shipping.
I felt comfortable purchasing these from IND because I knew they would take them back no questions asked if I wasn’t satisfied and they weren’t installed. Again, while the quality is probably the best amongst other solutions, it’s not perfect. Nonetheless, I have decided to keep them and am overall happy with them.
If you have heritage roundels, and you really wanted floating center caps but didn’t get them because your OCD wouldn’t let you have mismatched roundels (with the standard BMW roundel on your wheels), these are for you even thought they’re not cheap, especially considering I got my previous set of standard roundel OE floating center caps for my pre-LCI on Amazon for $77 delivered to my door in about 24 hours. Also worth noting here even though I mentioned it earlier in the other thread; if you lose one, you’ll have to purchase another entire set of four, just like with standard roundel caps (per Ryan).
For the detail freaks, sorry the wheels are dirty! We’ve had some crappy weather for days. Car will be detailed on Wednesday. I couldn’t wait to install these, so I just thoroughly cleaned out the areas inside the wheel after removing the fixed caps.
Will update the thread with some better photos after the car gets a wash.