Item: APEX ARC8-R
Rating: 4.8
Author: Andrew

Article Overview

Awesome products made by amazing people

Quality
Value
Fitment/Color Options

4.8

Summary

I’m going to skip out on the technical details of this review summary. We all know it’s a great product. It’s forged. It’s a classic design. Colors options are plenty and so is the fitment/size offerings. If you’re buying these wheels, you’re buying because you’re most likely already wanting these – you already have your mind set. Aside from the technical side of things, let’s talk about something that no one talks about. The team at APEX.

APEX as a brand is more than just a wheel company. They are a team of track enthusiasts that are first and foremost passionate about the sport. Eddy the owner has a Spec E46 which he built from the ground up and is participating in club racing. Max is a BMW nut, participates in multiple HPDE track days a year, and has a super clean E36 M3 with an S54 swap. Ryan is a perfectionist. If you take a look at his track E92 M3, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I know if a group of enthusiasts like them are running this company, then I trust them to make a solid product and do everything in their power to make the best products for the community.

If you’re for whatever reason not set on a wheel and still in the market, I encourage you to talk to a specialist at APEX. I encourage you to read through all of their tech articles on fitment and see how much it helps you in your purchasing decision. I encourage you to take a deeper look the team running the brand. When you consider all these attributes, maybe, just maybe, the products from APEX will mean a little more than just the learning about the technical details on the product marketing front.

18x10" ET25 Satin Black APEX ARC-8R Forged BMW Wheel

Let's Unbox This Wheel

First thing I noticed before opening up the box was the new packaging design. Looks like they added some graphics to the side print. I ordered the 18×10 ET25 ARC-8R in Satin Black for my E46 M3. Previously I was running the Hyper Silver in 18×9.5 ET 22 flow-formed version, but decided to use the 10″ wheel to fit larger tires while maintaining a proper amount of tire stretch to get a good balance of grip and sharp turn-in feel.

New Product Features

Paintless Knurled Beads

This was actually the first thing I noticed when I pulled it out of the box. There’s a shiny silver strip and although I know these beads are to help with tire slippage I never seen it in raw/paintless form. It should provide more grip than a painted surface.

New Stamps

There is an APEX logo stamp and a ARC-8R stamp on the inside lip of the wheel face. Adds a nice little touch to the aesthetics of the wheel.

1,800 lbs Max Load

The 10k forged press allows each wheel for 1.8k lbs of pressure. According to APEX, this is 1,000 lbs more than some of their flow-formed products! Kind of hard to read, but the stamp is on the bottom right corner of the back of the hub.

Profile 2 Face

The 18×10 ET25 comes with a Profile 2 concave face which gives it that iconic ARC-8 look that its most famous for. I do wish there was a Profile 3 variant for even more concave, but maybe we’ll see that for future models. I shot this on a wide angle lens so the concave is actually more than how it appears in this image.

Time to Mount Tires

I took the car to European Auto Source to mount my Nankang AR-1 275/35/18 tires. Luckily my car is gutted so I was able to fit all 4 boxes into my car. This is how I drove it. Everyone on the freeway kinda looked at me a little weird. I’m sure the wing has a lot do with it.