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Thinking Aloud - Wheels

...if you want light , then the BBS 10 spoke 17s are I believe (?) The lightest Porsche wheels ever fitted...
 
infrasilver's BBS alloys look absolutely awesome on his 996. The fact that his car is beyond LOW helps.
 
Hertsdriver said:
£800 is daft money..... theres nothing difficult about split rims, they are nuts and bolts, its maybe an hours extra work for the refurb place if that.

Most wheel refurb places like to lose the vat in with a cash in hand payment.... ;) I paid £350 for a set of 4 19" wheels to be powder coated, had a choice of 16 colours and a set of wheels to use ont he car while they were being done. Tyre removal and refitting is included.....


Unfortunately to refurb split rims the "proper" way which is split them all, strip and coat the centres and barrels, then diamond cut the rims, is way more labour intensive than one piece wheels, which can just be blasted then powder coated.

It's just nuts and bolts... until the bolts start snapping and need drilling out very carefully. They're small (M7) bolts that have probably had 20 years to corrode into the rim. Sometimes easy, sometimes a nightmare.

Then there's the machining of the rims. It's a very precise procedure (hence the term "precision engineering" :grin: ) and it takes much more time to do than hanging some rims up and just spraying them with powdercoat.
Although that still needs doing too, before you machine them.

After all that they're a pig to look after anyway, hence the popularity of the chrome powdercoat on the rims.
Also when you diamond cut rims, you're removing the top layer of metal to get to fresh stuff. You only get maybe 3 cuts in a wheels life then there's no more meat left to remove. That's another good thing about coating them as you aren't removing any material, bar the tiny amount during sand blasting.

£800 is a lot but if someone quoted less than £500 I'd be worried.
I used a place that quoted less than that and the results were amazing. So amazing I'd swear they were a different set of wheels....

Oh hang on, they were. They scrapped mine and had to buy me a replacement set. :grin:
The company in question have a good rep and have been going for years. Even the experts get it wrong.
I won't be naming them as they did the decent thing and replaced them and they will "never touch a set again as they're too much hassle".

Willy, I'd trust most companies to split and powdercoat them, but be wary of who to let loose with them on a lathe.
That's why the companies that are good at it know how to charge. :wink:
 
£800?!

I have the very same split rim wheels and was quoted £400 from a very busy place locally all in for remove tyres, split, damage repair (tyre fitters), repaint and bolt back together and remount tyres.

This was for proper paint not powder btw. I wouldn't bother re-polishing / diamond cut / lacquering the rims its not worth the heartache as above.
 
My local place Diamond rims rattle the machined ones off in no time compared to the powder coated ones. I wouldn't call sticking a wheel on a CNC wheel profiler precision engineering.
 
...my local Audi main dealer uses a mobile (in a van) diamond cutting wheel machine...much quicker than properly powder coating a wheel.
 
alex yates said:
My local place Diamond rims rattle the machined ones off in no time compared to the powder coated ones. I wouldn't call sticking a wheel on a CNC wheel profiler precision engineering.

Alex, any item you produce or rectify on a CNC machine is "precision machined" simply by the very nature of the machine and procedures used to do it. You know that.
Obviously it's at the very simple end of engineering, but let's not split hairs.
It still needs gripping, clocked, probed for the profile, then machining. That is "precision engineering".
And if your guy can do the above on 4 rims quicker than hanging them and painting then he's either a machining god or terrible at powder-coating.
 
GMG said:
...my local Audi main dealer uses a mobile (in a van) diamond cutting wheel machine...much quicker than properly powder coating a wheel.

Erm, don't know where to start with that.
We are talking full refurb here.
 
Marky911 said:
Alex, any item you produce or rectify on a CNC machine is "precision machined" simply by the very nature of the machine and procedures used to do it.


You can buy those CNC wheel lathes off the shelf and read the pamphlet it came with to learn how to use it. Any monkey can operate one after a few hours self learning.

I'm sorry but "Precision Engineering" in my book isn't something you learn how to do in a few hours reading a pamphlet. There's more skill in operating a Hunter Hawkeye correctly and I would deem that Precision Engineering either.
 
Full refurb from start to finish in less than 30 minutes.

 
Yep and one of those can't do the OPs wheels.

My local place has £100k of HAAS CNC lathe. Regardless of how easy the job is you put on it, it's precision engineering. Whether you agree or not doesn't matter. It is by definition precision engineering.
Yes it's child's play compared to proper CNC'ing but it's precision engineering.

We are getting way off topic here. I'm arguing the fact that those who pipe up, as you did that split rims are no harder to, or more importantly, anymore time consuming to refurb than one piece wheels, are totally incorrect.

£800 is a lot but as I say any less than £500 and I'd be wary.

Simply look at the process -

1 piece - 1) Shot blast
2) Powder coat

2/3 piece - 1) Dismantle wheels sorting any snapped bolts.
2) shot blast components
3) powder coat components
4) Diamond cut rims on CNC lathe.
5) Rebuild wheels using relevant locking agents, etc.

If anyone can't understand that the 2 piece wheel takes more time and expensive machinery to refurb, and that more time = more money then that's slightly astonishing.

Anyway that's all from me. I just have an issue with forum experts shouting "Rip off, rip off" at anyone getting on with their trade. Half the time as you proved you were comparing apples with oranges.
 
:grin: Agreed Mark. I wasn't disagreeing about the 2 piece process and assembly/disassembly, just that diamond cutting wheels has been deskilled so that any monkey can do it. The precision is in the machine design/manufacture and not the operator.

Op - give these guys a call and get a quote: http://www.diamondrimsltd.co.uk/
 
Brief update.

Thanks to the challenge of the price I was getting quoted and Marky911's explanation of alternative refurb approaches, I've now got 2 quotes from reputable local companies at the sub £500 region including VAT. This is to split the rims, dip and paint and includes tyre removal\refit.

Am still thinking of a change though :)

:?:
 
Sub £500 is much more like it . but if you fancy a change then why not. :thumb: :thumb:
 

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