Alloy Wheel Sellers (rant)

[Spinal]

Just my little rant before I goto sleep...

Rant 1: Why is it that I cannot find anyone with a decent stock of alloy wheels who will tell me exactly how much each rim weighs?

Rant 2: Why is it that ever seller that has directional alloys (like the aeroblade, swirly ones, turbine ones, etc) only ever has one side?

Grumble!!!

rant over...
M.

 

[Frankie]

I thought all the turbine type came like that.

 

[Spinal]

I thought all the turbine type came like that.

Like what? With 2 wheels "backwards"? Not if they are done properly...

E.G. the stock Ford turbines (they're on my mind at the moment), more commonly known as "swirly" (3 spokes) come in 2-left and 2-right, so both sides of the car look like they are moving forwards!


M.

 

[Frankie]

I thought you were on about Mercedes wheels,didn't realise you meant in general. I agree with you on that,although I tend to have issues with symmetry.

 

[Spinal]

Ah yes... I'm currently sitting in the time-out corner

There isn't a single merc on my drive! (though I have the boot-star from my W202 in my room as a souvenir)...

Saving up for a CLK... but it'll be a few months... in the meantime, I'm looking for a £500 run-around, and may have found one... but it needs new alloys as the seller isn't selling them with the car... so I had a look around for alloys in general... very frustrating really!

M.

 

[Howard]

Why do you need to know the weight of the wheels for a £500 runaround ?

 

[Spinal]

Because there a part of me that's thinking of turning into a trackday car once I get the CLK...

It has the engine... all it would need is a serious diet (it's a massively heavy car for what it is), a rollcage and some fiddling... but may actually work...

Admittedly, it's FWD... but hey, you can't have it all!

So I was thinking, if I have to buy alloys, I may as well buy a set that is as light as possible, so that if I do turn it into a TDC, I don't need to buy another set of rims...

M.

 

[Doodle]

The problem there is that most alloys that are cheap, will be heavy. There's a reason they don't quote the weights...

I presume this is the Probe you mentioned earlier? IME I wouldn't bother; you'll spend more time and money trying to sort out the flaws than it would cost to get a useable trackday tool.

 

[Spinal]

The problem there is that most alloys that are cheap, will be heavy. There's a reason they don't quote the weights...

I presume this is the Probe you mentioned earlier? IME I wouldn't bother; you'll spend more time and money trying to sort out the flaws than it would cost to get a useable trackday tool.

Who said anything about a tool? I want a toy

For a £500 outlay I think it could be a fun car... I hope... by flaws, do you mean design flaws?

M.

 

[Will]

In the nicest possible way - it's an old £500 FWD Ford, I wouldn't get hung up about % differences for wheel weights and stuff

Buy it and use it as a runaround, but save your hard-earned towards that CLK that you really want

 

[Doodle]

Who said anything about a tool? I want a toy

For a £500 outlay I think it could be a fun car... I hope... by flaws, do you mean design flaws?

M.

Semantics

In regard to being a track car, yes. It wasn't a very good road car either - even the Americans refused to buy it

Too heavy, too soft, biblical understeer.

 

[Sp!ke]

A set of alloys wont make much of an improvement to turn one of those into a track car.

You want cheap racing, buy a classic mini.

 

[Spinal]

Too soft - true... but then again, you can get struts for next to nothing

Too heavy - absolutely true! That's why I'm planning to strip it

Understeer - this will be the first FWD car that I buy. So far, I've managed not to buy a FWD... driven then quite a bit, but never owned one! So I'm kinda hoping for some understeer... need to learn somewhere

Mini: Spike, I really think you should be banned for "advertising" a bmw (admittedly, classics minis aren't bmw... but they've been tainted now!). After the Z3, I refuse to buy another beemer!

M.

 

[Mactech]

I quite understand your need to know the weight of wheels
It's not just a performance thing, but in knocks on to so many other aspects of the car. Ride quality, speed of steering, wheel control (assuming you don't change the dampers) and the likelihood of anyone being able to balance the things correctly.
After the size of the wheel, it's the first thing I want to know. Way before I know what it looks like!

 

[hotrodder]

The problem there is that most alloys that are cheap, will be heavy. There's a reason they don't quote the weights...

Not just cheap ones either. Picked up a set AMG II for the w124 a while ago, wasn't expecting them to be a proper lightweight 17" wheel but bloody hell they're heavy!

Probably won't be massively helpful but there's a spreadsheet on WheelWeights.net - Database of Wheel Weights that may list some of the brands you've looked at

 

[Rob77]

I'm kinda hoping for some understeer... need to learn somewhere

What would you be hoping to learn from the experience other than to crawl, yawing, round a track and knackering any good bits remaining on the car?

This'll come across as sarcastic, I don't mean it to, I'm genuinely interested. Why don't you take the Ducati round instead?

 

[Bellow]

You may well find that the lightest wheel is a steel wheel...

 

[Spinal]

Because last time I did a knee down on the Ducati she ended up in my garage with gravel rash and is still there as I haven't found a garage that I like to do some plastic welding and respraying! (oh, and I also got rammed by a drunk driver afterwards so she needs the fairings welded). So now I keep my bike speed sensible

It's really more about learning to handle a FWD around corners... I don't want to brag, so I wont say I'm good in a RWD... but I can get it around a bend while facing 90-degrees from the direction I'm going... and then recover, all within 2 lanes of space.

Also, all my experience around mecchanics has been with mercs or 4x4s... which means I've never really played with anything fwd... I want to see what all the fuss is about!

m.

 

[gunning]

get Rota GTR's they are near your price range, and weigh 7kg roughly

 

[Shude]

You may well find that the lightest wheel is a steel wheel...

Probably offset by heavier, higher-profile tyres!