BMS Protective Wheel Saver Socket Review

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Credit: F87Source


Introduction:

In this product review I will be taking an indepth look at the Burger Motorsports (BMS) 17mm protective wheel saver socket for BMW vehicles - in particular on my 2017 BMW M2. I will also go over why I personally believe this tool is a must have for all BMW owners.


So if you want to purchase to purchase this tool here’s a link to do so: https://burgertuning.com/collections...l-saver-socket



Disclaimer:

Damage/Injury Disclaimer: Any information, guidance, technical advice, coding advice, tuning advice, datalogging advice, installation instruction, calculation, experiment, safety information, or product installation demonstrated in my reviews is to be consumed and or done at your own risk. I will not be responsible for personal injuries, injuries to others or any living being, or any damage to your car, or any property damage.

Monetary disclaimer: I do not make commission, or profits or any kind of monetary gain from the sale of the BMS Protective Wheel Saver Socket tool.

Sponsorship disclaimer: The way my reviews work is that I determine what product that I want to buy and actually use on my own car, and during this process the product that I end up choosing is what I believe is the best option on the market. I then reach out to the company offering the product and ask them if they would be willing to sponsor me in a review, if the answer is yes then I write a review, if the answer is no I would end up buying the product (sometimes at a later date) but I wouldn’t complete a detailed review about it (I might write something, but not to the same extent as my standard reviews). But the critical thing is that I reach out for a sponsorship and not the other way around, this means that the products I am reviewing are actually things I believe in and would use on my own car. This also means that I am not being paid to review something I do not care about. Would I do a review if a sponsor reached out to me? The answer would depend on if I believed in the product, and I would make it clear in my review if this were the case. But at the time of writing this review, such an interaction has not occurred yet.


Time of writing disclaimer: everything I am writing about in this review is described at the time of writing and may not be updated in the future, so there is a potential that things are no longer accurate in my comparisons as parts are changed and upgraded as time passes.


Bias and comparison disclaimer: Throughout this review I will attempt to be as unbiased as possible while drawing comparisons to other products.


Mistakes and Inaccuracies Disclaimer: Throughout my review I will try to be as factually accurate as possible, but there are always chances that I make mistakes and write things that are incorrect/false. If this is the case please point it out to me and if indeed it is true that I am incorrect, I will correct these mistakes and apologize for them. Afterall I am only human, so mistakes can and will inevitably happen.


Subjective Disclaimer: Please note, these reviews are also written in my own opinion, so when I am comparing different products to determine what I see as the best, there are many factors that I go through to form this opinion. Obviously there will be disagreements between people, so I will do my best to objectively determine what I deem to be the best, but at the end of the day it is still just my own opinion whether it be right or wrong. Take whatever I say in my reviews with a grain of salt.



Image Credits:

Images and videos used in this review are all property of their rightful owners as credited below each image, I am just using them for the purpose of this review but if you (the owner of the image) would like them removed please let me know via pm. Otherwise thanks to the respective image owners (I made sure to credit your online name and link where I found the photo) of the photos, without you this review would be so much more bland.



Review Disclaimer:

First and foremost I would like to thank Burger Motorsports (BMS) for agreeing to partially sponsor me for this review. Despite this I will remain as unbiased as possible during the review. Please note, the dynamics of this relationship was that I reached out for a sponsorship review and not the other way around. This should demonstrate how I truly feel about these Protective Wheel Saver Sockets - in the sense that I truly believe it is something every BMW owner should have at their disposal when loosening or tightening their wheel bolts. In fact I actually have this protective wheel saver socket in my BMW factory tool kit at all times just in case I need to torque or remove a wheel bolt.



Customer Service, Shipping, and Overall Experience Dealing with BMS:


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source

Let’s begin with customer service, shipping, and the overall experience. I have said this in the past and I will say it again, BMS has some of the best customer service in the entire BMW community. They are responsive when answering emails, and are friendly, patient, and polite (Thanks again Payam). Shipping was great, BMS uses FedEx International Connect Plus which allowed for economical and fast shipping even across international borders (USA to Canada). BMS also uses quality ULine boxes (not some cheap Chinese boxes) with proper Box certificates and they package the box incredibly nicely with plenty of brown paper stuffing. Now you may wonder why is this even important? Well to answer that question it has everything to do with shipping insurance. If your package is ever damaged FedEx or UPS or any other carrier will ask for photo evidence of the packaging to make sure it was sufficiently packed and protected. They will then ask for the box certificate number to ensure that the box was strong enough for the items packed within. If any of these are not within spec, then your insurance claim may be denied. This is why packaging is so important, and BMS has perfectly nailed this criteria.

So overall, customer service, shipping, and my experience dealing with BMS has been great, no real complaints!



Purpose of having a Protective Wheel Saver Socket

So the next topic to discuss is what is the purpose of having a protective wheel saver socket? The answer is to protect your expensive wheels and black wheel bolts from getting scratched. Some aftermarket wheels (even the OEM factory wheels have quite tight tolerances) have incredibly tight clearances around the wheel bolts, to the point of the wheel socket almost touching the outer parts of the wheel and causing it to scuff if you cause the socket to wobble even a bit and rub against the wheel while tightening (and this is very easy to do because all sockets have a small bit of wiggle room due to the tolerance differences between the bolt and the socket). So something like this can occur if your socket hits or rubs against the wheel:


Credit: Ravenseal https://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh...06&postcount=1


With the BMS protective wheel saver socket, this will never occur because the synthetic polymer sleeve surrounding the socket is soft enough to not leave marks on the wheel, and better yet it is free spinning so it will never be able to rub or drag against your wheels (more on this soon).



BMS Protective Wheel Saver Socket:

Now let's take a closer look at the BMS protective wheel saver socket:


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


So these are the images of the BMS protective wheel saver socket. Now what you can notice from these first few images is that the BMS socket is a typical 17 mm deep socket design normally used on BMW wheel bolts. But let's take a deeper look at the features of this wheel socket:

1) Free floating synthetic polymer sleeve: Like I mentioned before, the BMS wheel socket has a white polymer sleeve surrounding it, and this sleeve is soft and very low in friction - somewhat like a teflon liner. This means that even if this outer sleeve were to contact your wheel during torquing or loosening the wheel bolt, it would not cause any damage as it is too soft and too low in friction that it would just glide on by. Even in worst case scenarios where the clearance is so tight and the wheel socket was rubbing against the wheel no damage were to occur, because the outer polymer sleeve is free floating from the interior metal socket. This means the outer layer would stay stationary and in contact with your wheel while the interior socket is spinning, and since the outer layer isn’t spinning it isn’t rubbing against your wheel and therefore it cannot scratch the wheel. To demonstrate this I have a video below of me holding the sleeve while cranking the wheel socket, and you can see the socket moves independently of the sleeve - you can actually remove the sleeve too if you wanted to remove it for cleaning purposes (click on the video below if it isn’t automatically playing):

View post on imgur.com

Credit: F87Source


2) 1/2” Drive: The BMS Protective Wheel Saver Socket is a 1/2“ drive socket, meaning it is easily compatible without adapters to your typical torque wrenches that you would use for wheel bolts. The 1/2“ design also means the socket can take alot more torque before breaking, making it more suitable for wheel bolts compared to 3/8“ drive sockets:


Credit: F87Source

As you can see in the graph below, 3/8” drive sockets can handle up to ~230 ft/lbs of torque (this is assuming you have a premium socket), while 1/2“ drive sockets can handle up to ~500 ft/lbs of torque (again assuming you have a good quality premium socket). This makes 1/2“ drive sockets preferable for high torque applications like wheel bolts, because you do not want your socket to break while torquing or loosening wheel bolts, as that will really damage your wheels.


Credit: Power Tool Institute https://powertoolinstitute.net/how-m...-a-drive-take/



3) Excellent tolerances: Tolerances are extremely important for sockets - especially if a high amount of torque is applied to them, because if your socket has poor tolerances they can round the head of a bolt - which will not be a fun job to remove. Improper tolerances can also cause the socket to move excessively and marr the corners of your nice black wheel bolts which is never a good thing. So lets examine the BMS socket:


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


According to my own measurements, the BMS socket has an ID of 17.04 mm, and that is quite an excellent tolerance level as it is almost exactly 17 mm (typically sockets and bolt heads are permitted to be +/- a couple percent from the actual rating). Compare that to the BMW security bolt tool: at 16.93 mm, the difference is only 0.11 mm, that translates to a 0.64763% difference between the two, so less than a single percent which is absolutely fantastic levels of tolerance. So kudos to BMS’s manufacturing processes.


4) Wheel bolt protection: The BMS socket not only has an external polymer sleeve, but the inside of the socket at the very end also has that same sleeving material - which acts as a backing pad. This prevents the head of your wheel bolts from getting scuffed and scratched up, meaning your wheel bolts stay nice and black and corrosion free (because the black coating is also there to stop rust on your grade 10.9 steel bolts).


Credit: F87Source


5) Stud compatible: If you look at the image above from section 4, you will notice the BMS wheel socket has a circular hole in the middle of the polymer backing inside of the socket. This hole will more easily allow longer protruding wheel studs to poke through and prevent them from interfering with the socket from fully seating on the wheel bolt. So this is a pretty good amount of attention to detail from the BMS team for including this, so rest assured if you have wheel studs this socket will work with them.


6) Chromoly construction: Another thing to notice is that the BMS socket is made of chromoly steel. This type of steel has very high impact resistance and strength compared to chrome vanadium (typical material sockets are made of), so it is an excellent choice of material for wheel sockets - which are typically used with impact guns. So you can rest assured that your BMS wheel socket will be able to hold up to abuse, and isn’t going to break on you.

Source: https://capritools.com/the-differenc...pact%20sockets.


7) Fits in your BMW F series tool kit (part number: 71116788732, https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...71116788732/): The final thing I would like to say is that this BMS socket fits snugly into your factory BMW tool kit that comes with your car, so you can carry it with you anywhere. This is a great thing because you will always have it on hand when working on your car, or if you take the car to a tire shop and you want to ensure they don’t mess up your wheels using poor quality sockets.


Credit: F87Source

Note: the BMS socket is on the compartment furthest to the right, you can just see the blue portion of the socket sticking out.



Images of the BMS Protective Wheel Saver Socket in Action:

I’d like to finish off this review with a few images of the BMS wheel socket in action:


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source


Credit: F87Source



Summary:

So overall the BMS protective wheel saver socket is a high quality tool that every BMW owner should have at their disposal to protect their expensive OEM or aftermarket wheels, if you’d like to purchase on here’s a link: https://burgertuning.com/collections...l-saver-socket

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