Why Discount tire Unique steel wheels are bad-pics

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: JustinH
When you use an aftermarket wheel like that you need to have a hub centric ring.

You are missing the ring in that one picture.


There is no missing hub centric ring.

Its just a "UNIQUE" Wheel from DTD. Almost all their unique steel wheels are designed with a massive hole there to fit any possible car that has the same stud pattern.

Their alloy wheels come with the proper spacer. The tirerack steel wheels come with vehicle specific sizing.

There is no way to snap-in a hub centering ring to work with the DTD wheels. They are machined Flat and the back surface touches the hub.. I'm not sure how to exactly describe it except you cant use a hub centering ring with them.

I did Call DTD after I noticed them and they said I was correct. It doesnt seem to affect this car much so I didnt send them back.

The set of michelin xice xi3 on steelies I ordered at the same time for my 2011 forester felt very lumpy on the highway... I did return those and bought blizzak ws-70 on tirerack steelies. Which were fine.


Or to put it shortly. Those wheels were designed to be lug centric.

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted By: Traction
If the lug holes are not perfectly spaced on a hub centric wheel, the stud will break. .......


I'm going to somewhat disagree with this.

The fit doesn't have to be perfect. Nothing is! There is a small amount of inaccuracy that is tolerable.

But you bring up a good point that in a lug centric fit, both the studs and the holes contribute to centering accuracy. It's just there are more things that can go wrong compared to hub centric.

Originally Posted By: Traction
...... Not all OEM wheels have the same hub centric fit either. Some fall right off the hub after removing nut, while others fit so tight you have to beat them off, even if they are not corroded on. ......


I don't think it is tightness that matters. I think it is the taper and the materials that are used.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: Rand
Originally Posted By: JustinH
When you use an aftermarket wheel like that you need to have a hub centric ring.

You are missing the ring in that one picture.


There is no missing hub centric ring.

Its just a "UNIQUE" Wheel from DTD. Almost all their unique steel wheels are designed with a massive hole there to fit any possible car that has the same stud pattern.

Their alloy wheels come with the proper spacer. The tirerack steel wheels come with vehicle specific sizing.

There is no way to snap-in a hub centering ring to work with the DTD wheels. They are machined Flat and the back surface touches the hub.. I'm not sure how to exactly describe it except you cant use a hub centering ring with them.


Why not? Slip it over the hub, then put the wheel on, carefully making sure it centers on the ring.

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle


Why not? Slip it over the hub, then put the wheel on, carefully making sure it centers on the ring.


You would have to machine the wheel as well. The center bore is massive and not precise enough.

Also did you see how big the hole is? The centering ring would be 5x wider than a normal one. Much to big to be practical.

I think you are missing the point of my topic. Its not how can I make these work with hub centering rings. Answer: you can't.

It was to let people who buy from DT/DTD know their steel wheels are not good.

If these wheels actually bothered me I would have sent them back as well. I just carefully torque them while in the air.

Now on my Forester the lug centric wheels felt like they were square. So they went back. I didnt know DTD was pricematching tirerack's good steel wheels with their super cheapo ones. When I ordered both sets.

 

[JustinH]

Sorry to hear that. I bought some steel wheels a few years back for a saturn, from tirerack of all places.

I paid $19 each during the summer.

They mounted perfectly on the hub, and were only drilled for one pattern.

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: JustinH
Sorry to hear that. I bought some steel wheels a few years back for a saturn, from tirerack of all places.

I paid $19 each during the summer.

They mounted perfectly on the hub, and were only drilled for one pattern.



Right. The second picture. My Blizzak ws-80's on Tirerack steel wheels