Its not an exact science, if you bought the steel wheels new then the seller should know their product.

Most hub designs are OK, but many BMW's, like Mercedes and larger Japanese cars with proper manual parking brakes are of the drum inside disc design, on Mercs in particular if the bolts protrude through the drum more than a couple of mm then fouling of the brake shoes and fittings can and does happen.

You can measure the amount of thread with a bolt sitting in each wheel type and compare and make a judgement call, if there's going to be an issue it will usually be at the rear so i'd suggest putting a rear wheel on, put a couple of bolts in gently feeling for undue resistance and then turn the wheel slowly, you'll know then for sure.

Remember to check the bolt head seats, most will be straight taper but some (MB's) are curved.

Edited by gordonbennet on 30/09/2016 at 08:38

Thanks for the comments. They are bolts that screw into the hub. Not as convenient as nuts on wheel studs. They seem to go on Ok and the bolts dont extend into the hub any more than when the alloys are on and dont seem to snag anything so I'll put them all on in a few weeks.