16x8 AR chamber damage

1225 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by PIRATE, Jun 11, 2008

MTK Cruiser

Discussion Starter · Jun 11, 2008

Hey everyone.
Wanted to see what your opinion is. I ordered my AR 16x8 black teflon chambers with 305/70/16 nitto terra graplers from my local tire/wheel( American Racing) dealer. I told them I did not want the the center caps and to make sure they had the correct lugs in black. So I show up there at about 12pm today. at about 12:40 they tell me my truck is going in and they are mounting one up to make sure of the fit. At about 1pm my first tire is set on my front pass side and everything look good. At about 2 I go check the truck out. It is still on the lift with the 4 tires on and the fith waiting on the ground to be put on the back door. I look at the first wheel and it is missing 1/2 the teflon on the inside where the cap would normaly hide. I look at the rest of the wheels and they are all chiped and scrached on the outside edge where you would still see it if the capwas to be put on.It is also scrached on the whole inside center. I also notice that some of the lug holes have the teflon rubed away and or are scrached. it looks like the socket was either not held straight or it was too large.. When I show the owner all this i am told that where the cap would normaly go there is nothing they can do to stop that. That it is from the balancer. The answer that I got for the lug holes was that the holes are tight and its almost impossible to not get that damage and for the bad rim I will be getting a new one in 2 days. They also called me and said they would be giving me a teflon scratch pen to touch up the damage. What do you guys think about this. Is this normal with teflon wheels. I am in no way crying here but I paid for new wheels and feel they should look new after they are installed. This truck will be wheeled hard and will get scratched up but just dont like having someone else do it to what I paid for. Oh yea forgot to mention they did not have the black lugs and when I left I turned around as soon as I hit 42 mph because the the shimmy it had. They said all 4 were out of balance left and 5 min later it came back. The glue is not holding the weights down all that good. Don't think they cleaned the wheels before they put them on. So what do you guys think. If any of you have a contact # for American Racing I could call could you please pm me with it please. I did e-mail them on this mater but would like to speak to a person.
Thanks for all the info and opinions that I know I will be reciving.

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FJCcrawler

· #2 · Jun 11, 2008

It sound to me that you went to a bad tire place with lazy workers that screw things up. You should get what you paid for, NEW, not new with a few scratches. Teflon shouldn't be that easy to scratch. I also think it's the carelessness of the workers.

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Sky

· #3 · Jun 11, 2008

Sounds like my experience with 4 Wheel Parts. Mine got installed and were all scratched up. I had a conversation before they installed the wheels about the lug nuts because they said they were too tight (said no one made any narrower) and couldn't find the right ones, and that the "wheels would shimmy a little, but that doesn't hurt a thing". I told them not to install the wheels if they did not have the right lug nuts. They came back 20 minutes later and said they found the right lug nuts and installed the wheels and tires. Well I got on the highway and sure enough it starts to shimmy. I pulled a lug off the spare and found out they used square ended lugs on a tapered hole - no wonder it shimmied! I then spoke with cruiserlarry at Dirty Parts and got the correct, tapered and narrow lugs nuts( Gorilla lug nuts) and funny enough the shimmy went away.

Your story just seemed all too familiar, like they just don't really care to do the job right.

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lonelydriver

· #4 · Jun 11, 2008

I have the same wheels, and for the most part.... mine are damaged in the exact same way. When they remove it from the balancer, unless the operator lifts it off the center spindle while removing the wheel.. it will scratch the inner hub area. My inner hub area was also looking like they forgot to spray the teflon there.. The holes for the lug nuts are also too small. You have to use ricer tuner lugs or something if you don't want scratches. Any normal lugs like the gorilla ones I use will cause the paint around the lugs to scratch off. I think it's just bad design by American racing.....

It sucks.. and I don't like spending big bucks
and receiving something damaged either.... but I ended up scratching all 4 wheels on the next day on the trail so.... what the hey.. it's part of wheeling.:bigthumb:

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firemanj92

· #5 · Jun 11, 2008

pm sent....I have the same wheels. My installer did not damage the finish on my wheels. They used the right tools (a thin wall lug socket, protected tire mounting arm etc.) But they did forget to torque down the lugs and locks thus I lost one. Luckily I over ordered from WheelersOffroad in OR....I would be highly suspect of the installer.

J

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MTK Cruiser

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jun 11, 2008

Thanks everyone. Going back to the shop in the morning for my new wheel. Will let you all know the outcome.

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PIRATE

· #7 · Jun 11, 2008

If you have, getting or thinking about getting these wheels please make sure you use the ET Style Conical Lugnuts in order to get the correct amount of turns (they do not make them in black that I have found )- If you use Tuner Style lugs you will only get 5.5 turns out of them which is a bit sketchy. After switching out my tuner style to the Et style - Alot of Vibration from the steering wheel was gone.

I was lucky I guess and got my wheels in good shape. I was with the technician while he mounted and balanced them to insure they did not mistreat them.

As far as the half painted center part of the hubs
I hit them with some flat black Engine enamel and that took care of that.Just hit the hub area as well with the same paint

I am running them without any center caps and think they look great

Good luck on getting your new wheel - Hope it all works out !

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