[jrothstein]

So, I picked up a Frankenstein sized bolt in both my front left tire and rear right-- joy.. Called the BMW dealer and they wanted $800 to replace both Potenza RFT tires.. Called Discount Tire and they happended to have the tires in stock and quoted me $600, so it was a no brainer.

So I rolled my baby into Discount Tire and they changed both tires out in under 15 minutes-- overall a pretty painless experience except for the $600 that was extracted from by wallet for two bloody tires..

However, once I got back home I noticed they replaced my metal "N" stem caps with cheap plastic grey ones (joy), but far more disturbing are these fugly bands of adhesive metal "chicklets" they stuck to the inside of the rim. I compared these to the untouched wheels, and the originals do come with something similar made of grey plastic, they are far more innocuous and better blended with the rim color.

I have attached a picture of what I'm talking about.

All research as to what the hell these things are (original or the ones discount tire slapped on) have proven fruitless. So, can someone please enlighten me to:

1) What the hell these are for?
2) Why the hell discount tire had to rip off the BMW supplied ones and slap their crappy version on instead. These are on the rims, not the tire, so I'm confused as to why.
3) Can I safely rip them off, or at least pare them down so they aren't so noticeable?