Picking up a new flagship SUV should be one of the better days of your life. Getting home and discovering the front and rear wheel rims were installed in the wrong positions is not. BYD apologized after some Great Tang electric SUVs — a Dynasty-series flagship — were delivered with front and rear wheel rims reversed. The cause was not a rogue assembly worker but an incorrect product-code entry by a supplier, according to BYD. A single coding error. Thousands of dollars of vehicle, delivered wrong.
A Supplier Typed the Wrong Code. Your Wheels Paid for It.
The mix-up traces back to a staggered-fitment design that makes swapped rims immediately consequential.
The Great Tang uses narrower rims up front and wider ones at the rear — a staggered setup where position matters. Hubei Boyu Industrial, the wheel-rim subassembly supplier, entered an incorrect product code that sent wider rims to the front axle and narrower ones to the rear, according to BYD’s announcement reported by Bloomberg and CNEVPost. BYD said it corrected the coding error, and the supplier subsequently added visual inspection and error-prevention measures to the production line. A routine software mistake with an embarrassing, tangible result.
Key details from BYD’s announcement, per reports citing the company:
- BYD said its testing found no handling or driving-safety risk in affected vehicles — that is the company’s assessment, not an independent finding
- Affected owners can receive free inspections and professional rim replacement at BYD service centers
- BYD will reset the full-vehicle warranty period for affected cars
- Transportation support — loaner vehicles or reimbursement of related expenses — is available
- BYD has not disclosed how many vehicles or production batches are affected; the remedy program was announced Nov. 11, 2026
Several owners identified the problem themselves, noticing wider rims on the front axle and narrower ones at the rear — the opposite of the vehicle’s specification. Their concern centered on potential uneven tire wear over time, even if BYD’s internal testing showed no handling issue. BYD’s position, according to Bloomberg and CNEVPost reporting, is that the company apologized for the inconvenience and that specialized testing found no handling or driving-safety impact. That may well be accurate. It is also entirely reasonable that owners were not inclined to take the automaker’s word without confirmation.
An incorrect product-code entry passing through a high-volume assembly process is exactly the kind of small, invisible failure that quality-control systems exist to intercept. Here, it was not intercepted. The Great Tang is a Dynasty-series flagship, not a niche model — and that is precisely what makes the reputational sting harder to shake once the rims get swapped back.
What Affected Owners Should Do
BYD’s company-led remedy program offers free inspections and replacements for owners with concerns about their vehicle.
BYD’s service network began offering free inspections following the Nov. 11 announcement. If you own a Great Tang and have any doubt about your vehicle’s wheel fitment, contacting a BYD service center for an inspection is the clearest next step. The rim replacement itself is straightforward. The question BYD has yet to answer — exactly how many new car owners were affected — is considerably less so.
