Great shakes, it's Yahtzee... or a Taurus

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redhat

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I had a local tire dealer put new snows on the aluminm wheels I have for winter. These aluminum wheels were universal, so they had hub-centric rings to adapt from the 73mm bore to the 63.4mm of the Taurus. Luck would have it that I hit a good enough pothole to bend one of these wheels. So I bought new 17" steel wheels and had the same tire dealer switch the tires over. One week in and I have a bad vibration... so I thought, "Eh maybe I need hub rings for these too". I assumed it could just center on the lugnuts. So I bought 63.4mm to 67.1mm rings to adapt the Taurus hub to the steel wheel. Well, I took off the wheels yesterday and found out why the thing shakes. They never took the old hub rings out! The wheel was never fully against the hub. The hub bores of the steel wheels are now bent towards me and the hub-rings for my old wheels are bent up. Called the store and sent and e-mail to their corporate. Waiting to hear back. I'm not nuts, that should've been caught... right? To me personally, and I'm not a tire shop pro, if a wheel doesn't sit on that hub great, you take a good second look? I'm assuming they threw the wheel on the lugs and ran 'em down. Like you can clearly see the black aluminum hub rings against the silver rotor when they're on. A wheel could've come off and seriously damaged the car or injured me or another motorist. I am bothered and very disturbed.
 
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Originally Posted by michaelluscher
Your hub rings are metal? Mine are Plastic frown I doubt they'd hold up to that level of misinstallation
Yeah I'd think your plastic ones would snap or crunch. I just don't know what they were thinking that day. Tires are one of those things I think a lot of us who do all of our own work, go to shops for besides perhaps or state inspections. Now I def want to buy a tire machine with Dad.
 
I Agree, it should have been caught. This is just another reason why I avoid centering rings and cheaper wheels all together. Better to simply pony up the cash for a set of wheels (even if it means going OEM) which match the specs of your stock wheels (similar offset, same hub diameter etc). You'll never have to worry about clearance issues, worn centering rings, or vibrations (if they are in good shape). Oh and plastic centering rings generally don't snap or crunch very easily. They usually fail by getting worn down each time they are placed on the hub and generally are designed to wear down over time. I did this on the Lexus below, and got a set of these wheels for dirt cheap from Lexus: https://www.lexuspartsnow.com/parts/lexus-is-fsprt-whl-front~ptr59-53130.html They are for later model Lexus IS models, but since nothing changed with their cars since the 2006 was introduced, all the specs match and I have a *much nicer looking* old car. Considerably cheaper (a fraction the cost) of getting my old 18's refinished, and who doesn't love the shine of new wheels?!?!
 
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
I Agree, it should have been caught. This is just another reason why I avoid centering rings and cheaper wheels all together. Better to simply pony up the cash for a set of wheels (even if it means going OEM) which match the specs of your stock wheels (similar offset, same hub diameter etc). You'll never have to worry about clearance issues, worn centering rings, or vibrations (if they are in good shape). Oh and plastic centering rings generally don't snap or crunch very easily. They usually fail by getting worn down each time they are placed on the hub and generally are designed to wear down over time. I did this on the Lexus below, and got a set of these wheels for dirt cheap from Lexus: https://www.lexuspartsnow.com/parts/lexus-is-fsprt-whl-front~ptr59-53130.html They are for later model Lexus IS models, but since nothing changed with their cars since the 2006 was introduced, all the specs match and I have a *much nicer looking* old car. Considerably cheaper (a fraction the cost) of getting my old 18's refinished, and who doesn't love the shine of new wheels?!?!
Wow. I wish they came in 17" My Camry needs a new set of non winter alloys I don't want to know what having mine refurbished and unbent is gonna cost
 
Obviously a very serious error by the individual(s) that mounted the steelies on the hub. Hard to imagine that it wasn't noticed that something was amiss during the mounting process. And you are correct, as bad as they are the results could have been far worse. I'll be very interested to know what the shop and corporate have to say about it. At the very least, anything and everything damaged should be replaced at their expense.
 
See, I'm the type that would have imagined all the ways a shop could screw this up and would have taken the rings out BEFORE handing the tires and wheels over to the shop to mount. I don't think even verbal or written instructions would have worked. But that's just me.
 
I've had a few situations where someone put a spare on (owner, AAA, good Samaritan) and didn't remove the hub ring. Usually makes for a dicey drive to the shop, or leads to a tow. We stocked quite a few hub ring sets, cheap plastic, around $15 for a set of four. And I reminded the owners that they had them and had to remove them for a spare.
 
Friday I spoke with a district manager of the tire shop. He was very concerned about this and said they will be making it right. He said that the store manager of that particular location will be getting in touch with me and they will be replacing every steel wheel and the hub spacers that were damaged. He also said that they "took care of the issue" at that store. I do partially feel bad if someone did get fired, however, what happened wasn't right. Will update as to when they do indeed correct the issue.
 
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