Knock off wheels, one mans point of view.

[Vintage Grumble]

http://custompinoyrides.com/2012/03/que ... ta-wheels/

One thing that has always bugged me about the knock off wheel debate is the showing pictures of broken wheels, how many crashes are caused because the wheel broke vs the wheel broke because of the crash?

Just thought some people may find this interesting.

[flyingbrick]

thank you

Finally an article written without bias, with some common sense and with actual factual information.

Now, let us all wait for Simon to come in here and whaaaah about it.

[J-W-G]

Now, let us all wait for Simon to come in here and whaaaah about it.

Had to lol at that

[Bullitt]

Real wheels break too. When I bought my Honda it came with Mugen RNR's with a mark on the lip of one where itd previously been kerbed...all was fine for about a year till one day the tyre went flat. Turned out one of the spokes had cracked where it joined the rim. I'm sure a knock off wheel could have suffered the same failure but decent wheels are often pretty light which all else equal (which I know its not) surely doesn't help

[Roman]

Pitched in my 8309840398543 cents on the facebook thingy:

The reason this is always so heated, is because there are several elements to the argument which make it complicated.

Given this is partly a nerdy/engineering type argument, for sake of clarity I would like to define these issues and give my opinion seperately on:

‎1. Perceived quality control / strength issues:

This has already been pretty well covered by the main article.

‎2. Imitations impacting apon profitability of wheel manufacturers:

There is the argument that no one would buy a set of genuine wheels for $5000, if they can buy a similar looking set for $1000.

This makes sense, but the people who are in the market for a $1000 set of wheels, would they have ever considered paying $5000 for a set of wheels anyway?

Would the manufacturers of $5000 wheels, ever consider making a $1000 set themselves?

For many people, high end wheels are probably over half the value of their car.

Which is a car insurance nightmare not just because ANY aftermarket wheels increase your likelyhood of theft considerably, but try explaining to an insurance company why they should insure $5000 worth of highly likely to get stolen wheels? There are practical reasons beyond the initial cost which make this an unrealistic option for... well, just about everybody.

‎3. Understanding the engineering, manufacturing and price differences between Road wheels vs race wheels

One of the core values of Engineering, is choosing appropriate materials and construction methods to acheive a cost effective solution for a particular application.

Given the application, there's no engineering reason why cast wheels are inadequate for road cars, or even high performance street cars as demonstrated.

Do companies that sell race wheels they expect to sell these on road cars anyway, or is this a market segment they arent even interested in?

If they ARE interested in this market segment, why do they not produce cast wheels which could compete in this supposeduly lucrative market segment?

‎4. Imitations limiting creative/engineering potential of manufacturers

The argument that if imitations of the real wheels are released, then the main company will likely go under, and they will have no further scope for creating new wheel designs, stagnating the market.

However massive amounts of R&D arent required to make wheels, differences designs MAY give diminishing gains in weight save vs total strength, but as demonstrated by the massive variety of wheel designs available, minimising material usage is not one of the main constraints vs other factors.

Widespread use of CAD has likely MASSIVELY leveled the pR&D costs regardless, in terms of prototypes/destructive testing etc anyway.

‎5. Perception that imitations cause devaluation of fashion status of expensive wheels.

Apart from adhering to fasion, there is no practical reason for spending several thousands of dollars on wheels on a street car.

If one person spends $6000 and the other $1000 to acheive the same look, the first person's fashion adherence investment devalues, as well as financial value of selling second hand if competing with imitations. This seems to account for most of the sour grapes attitudes about imitation wheels.

ANY type of Fashion trickles down from the high desirability high quality, to low desirability low quality over time.

Just about any reasonably priced article of clothing in generic stores is a trickle down of more expensive fasionable items that previously held exclusivity and quality that demanded a premium in price.

Imitations are a catalyst for change by making things uncool, and preventing stagnation.

If one fashion was cool forever, then the wheel market would be severly limited in scope for creativity regardless.

[flyingbrick]

Just about any reasonably priced article of clothing in generic stores is a trickle down of more expensive fasionable items that previously held exclusivity and quality that demanded a premium in price.

Explain cargo pants.

edit:

lol, simons in the comments thing at the bottom of that page blowing his trumpet hahaha

[chees-]

after richie gave me a bollocking, i've thought/read about it a bit. don't care about knockoffs so much anymore, but what i do hate is when they look like shit compared to the original, if your gonna copy something do it right.

ie the og meshies compared to ssr mesh(standard and reverse), or rota zeros vs equip 01s

vs

vs

yes i purposely haven't put which is which in the above two.

they seem to miss all the subtleties the originals had.

but then again i'm quite a fan of rota shakotans

still have nothing on hayashi's

[Brock-Lee]

You are comparing 2 very different wheel widths. Cone dish hayashis vs the same/comparable widths and offsets and the Replicas stand up quite nicely imo.

Arent simons wheels made from 8 narrow wheels hah. Shot kettle.

[chees-]

last two aren't supposed to be a comparison, both look sweet for different reasons, also shakotans don't come much deeper than that anyway, thats the deepest 4x100 option they have

slightly better angle

[Simon]

I am not even going to go into this past this post. I have just been talking / arguing about this in depth with whom I gather are the a Major distributor or Rota wheels in NZ.

I offered to organise an independent test of a new Rota vs a new Original wheel. Of course they declined despite the obvious HUGE marketing potential if it tested well for them. Nothing more encouraging than a man who won't stand beside his product.

Thinking about doing it anyway through Massey.

Also that above article is just as bad as mine. No scientific data and the guy obviously knows nothing about wheels anyway... He compares the same wheel to itself and calls it a SSR.

I think what upsets me the most is the willingness of people to buy a product that is obviously a rip off and of lesser quality ignoring potential damage to their vehicles (probably not so much) and the founding companies that are having their all important brand image stolen.

[danger]

I bet he listens to dubstep too

[chees-]

yet to see any issues with rota's quality wise on there newish wheels.

also can you please point that out in the comments simon, basically voids the writers opinion.

surprised i didn't notice(thought they looked alittle odd), guess i'm not much of a fan of mk1's (though they do have their place)

"WHY DO YOU LIKE THEM?

Because you can get what the real boys have for a third of the price?"

cause they're cheap, and we're poor, not all of us have big budgets for our cars/not all our cars are worth big budgets

[Truenotch]

Have seen the results of a test done in a tyre shop with a brand new well made wheel and the equivalent knock off.

Both were dropped from the same height onto the same concrete - the genuine one was scratched and the knock off flattened the bead square.

I don't have any issues with K/O wheels though, they are what they are - would still roll Rota / Sportmaxx etc on the racecar without a wink. Quite keen to see proper comparison tests though - do it simon!

[DavidTheCreator]

what i dont get is why these new brands that are using the same styles as the older companies can seem to offer them with alot more dish/-ve offsets. i would think that they original wheel company didnt offer them in that offset/with that much dish was because it caused to much stress on other parts of the wheel.

not talking about rota, who i think are a goodish brand but does everyone really think that all these companys that have these wheels on ebay/trademe etc really put all there wheels through testing? i bet they just send a inventor file to some chinese company who then make them a few thousand wheels for sweet fuck all.

im with simon on this one. i want to see some test figures.

i think i need a new well known branded wheel and a new "ripoff" wheel and press to do some testing

[Snoozin]

Soooo over this "debate" myself.

[danger]

Safety first

[Simon]

Arent simons wheels made from 8 narrow wheels hah. Shot kettle.

Said I wasn't gonna reply but missed this and had to take the bait

Haha yes this is true. But you know as well as I do that they are safe.

They are still made from genuine materials. You can't buy them in the size I have, but if you could, they would be made exactly how I have them. A 3 piece wheel is a 3 piece wheel. A centre, spun bands and big bolts, all of good quality (which mine are). Many a wheel has been widened with this exact method for racing applications which of course you know

I'm sick of this debate also and usually keep out of it now but this went a bit deeper because of the shit that went down with Juiced, and these two who I think import Rota. I took the chance to publicly make a bit of a scene about it just before because that way everything comes out of the woodwork with no bitchy he said she said whos that guy stuff. Wish I never wrote the stupid thing.

[chees-]

any chance of telling me what happened with juiced? just get kicked for writing that fake debate article? or more?

[Simon]

any chance of telling me what happened with juiced? just get kicked for writing that fake debate article? or more?

I quit along with 60% of his other contributors. The fake article was a leaving shit stir which lead to advertisers pulling and legal stuff against him as publisher + more I wont go into.

Oops

[neo5365]

Yeah I agree this thread is pointless. Not taking the piss but I can foresee not so long in the near future when late 90s/00s make a come back, we will be debating about what brand of chrome is genuine chrome etc.

chrome wheel comparison