I am sending this to hopefully help fellow camaro owners avoid a very costly and expensive negative experience with Wheel Vintique afermarket Rally rims.

I purchased (4) Rally (afermarket) Wheel Vintique wheels new, and over the last 2 1/2 months have been remounting, rebalancing and receiving new replacements- to replace defective and out of round rims from Wheel Vintiques. In total I received 7 rims from them and all ran out with wobbles, brand new out of the box!

These poor quality rims were causing my 67 camaro convertible to shake real good at 40-50 MPH! Afer numerous visits to tire shops and $200.00 dollars in mounting and remounting and balancing, I finally sent them back to the catalog seller and bought original dated GM Rallys-

Car is rollling true, dead straight and no shakes and wobbles! I called he company and they said they never heard of this issue-Makes you really wonder!

Hope this saves others 2 1/2 months of wasted time and money for others!

regards,
JL

I have heard this on other web boards as well! And the complaints are to the same wheel company! It really does make you wonder.....I was going to buy some in the past but went with GM wheels after hearing this before...

Its always" your are the first with that type of problem" . This forum has talked about this issue before. Glad you brought it back up .

I bought pair of 15x8x4.5bs a while back (2 yrs?) and the wheels were/are good. I did however have to send back the trim rings that didn't please me. Maybe you got into a bad batch, who knows. Their QC should have caught it if that was the case.

Over the last few years, I've bought 24 wheels from them, and only 1 of them had an issue with out of round.

The latest set is now on my daily driven Chevy pickup and they are very good and balanced with minimal weights.

Over the last few years, I've bought 24 wheels from them, and only 1 of them had an issue with out of round.

IMO, that is still too many.

Most all hub bores are oversized on "generic" rally wheels. The hub bores on the factory rally wheels are con-centric with the factory hubs thus using the hub to center the wheels instead of the lug nuts. Lug nut should only be used for the sole purpose of installing the wheels to the hub, not center the wheel. Most all "quality" wheels will be hub-centric or have center rings available to match the i.d. of the wheel to the o.d. of the hub. This is very important when shopping for wheels. Also note, your wheel stud are'nt designed to "carry" the load of your vehicle. The hub is.

Cris

Hey, a heads up on wheels, not quite a nightmare but something I had never thought of. I had to remove weights from a set of drums to get aftermarket wheels to fit, of course now they can't be balanced.

I'm trying to think of a better wheel for the money.

CJ,..you are right on the money!

You may can get away with wheels that aren't "hub-centric" on the rears, but there's no way I'd run them on the fronts. The original Kelsey-Hayes rally wheels are still being made for about the same price as the repo,..the only disadvantage, is, for the KH 15" wheels, they're only made in 7" rims with 4.25" backspace, or the 8" widths with 4" backspace,..the latter being for Vettes. In the 8 inch version, there's not enough backspace for Camaros,..or more accuretely, they stick out too much which causes clearance issues.

But as CJ says above, you're asking too much of your lug studs to both center the wheel and carry the load,..that's the hub's job.

You may can get away with wheels that aren't "hub-centric" on the rears, but there's no way I'd run them on the fronts.

While I wouldn't argue that hub-centric wheels are superior... I'm not aware of a single mass produced aftermarket wheel that is, not in the entire thirtyfive years that I've cared what a car is...Remember the "one size fits all" slotted lug hole (uni-lugs)?

While I wouldn't argue that hub-centric wheels are superior... I'm not aware of a single mass produced aftermarket wheel that is, not in the entire thirtyfive years that I've cared what a car is...Remember the "one size fits all" slotted lug hole (uni-lugs)?


Most all quality billet wheel companys will provide rings, if asked. Wheels from Europe and Japan that are TUV or JMOT tested utilize hub rings. Even the "custom" A/R Torq Thrust wheels are bored to accept a ring. Most tire and wheel stores just don't mention it or don't know. In my 20 years of buying wheels everything from my '68 BMW 2002 to my '68 Camaro and my Duramax all have rings. I'm surprised no one has used the 'vette rallys and had the centers moved out. There are companies that can change backsides. Stockton Wheel can do it.

Cris

Most all quality billet wheel companys will provide rings, if asked. Wheels from Europe and Japan that are TUV or JMOT tested utilize hub rings. Even the "custom" A/R Torq Thrust wheels are bored to accept a ring. Most tire and wheel stores just don't mention it or don't know. In my 20 years of buying wheels everything from my '68 BMW 2002 to my '68 Camaro and my Duramax all have rings. I'm surprised no one has used the 'vette rallys and had the centers moved out. There are companies that can change backsides. Stockton Wheel can do it.

Cris

I did say "mass-produced" didn't I? Not talking rice or beemer wheels, or $500 a pop custom billets... regardless, is there somewhere I can get hub rings for my (fairly) new 17"Cargar SS's?

I did say "mass-produced" didn't I? Not talking rice or beemer wheels, or $500 a pop custom billets... regardless, is there somewhere I can get hub rings for my (fairly) new 17"Cargar SS's?


Rice or Bimmer wheels? Dude CHILL! Quality billet wheels are'nt all $500.00 a pop. Look around at the diffrent companies. Check the I.D. of the bore on your wheels and call the people you bought them from. What's with the attitude.

Cris

While I wouldn't argue that hub-centric wheels are superior... I'm not aware of a single mass produced aftermarket wheel that is, not in the entire thirtyfive years that I've cared what a car is...Remember the "one size fits all" slotted lug hole (uni-lugs)?

Are you guys saying that "hub-centric" wheels are definitely required? I recently put a new set of 18" billet wheels on my '69 that are "stud-centric" and now have a vibration in the front that starts at 60 mph and gets increasingly worse. I've had the tire checked for balance at 2 places. When I put my spare 15" ralley wheel on, it is fine!! I spoke to the wheel company today and they were not aware of any problems like this!

Gary

I am convinced that the problem with my Wheel Vintiques aftermarket wheels was twofold.

1) They were out of round due to poor quality control

2) They were lug centric and not hubcentric, so between the out of round and and this-I was getting a violent shake at 45-55 MPH.

I will never buy lug centric again without a centering ring. I could not find one for Wheel Vintiques, including calling them directly!

best
JL

You got me thinking now, In the past all or most all aftermarket wheels had this little snap on cover or cup that lock to center and didnt center wheel.

But the factory type Ralley or stock steel wheel did do this and seem to also center on the bolt circles. If aftermarket wheels did not use hubcentering then as someone mentioned,, you have to build to the specific application and I dont think they are doing this... Good question to ask next time I purchase wheels. I will go along with the orginal problem of bad ralley wheels. Best to go get these from KH vendor or Gm dealers. I see now that some of the aftermarkets Ralleys are powder coated?

I have a set of 17x8.5x5 W/V that are stud centic,and i have no problems with them.they been on the car fo five years and the chrome and over all wheels are ok.I also have a set of center caps from W/V the shortys in stainless and they are excellent quality.Nick

I have a set of 17x8.5x5 W/V that are stud centic,and i have no problems with them.they been on the car fo five years and the chrome and over all wheels are ok.I also have a set of center caps from W/V the shortys in stainless and they are excellent quality.Nick

I sold a lot of wheels, none of which were hub centric, and did not have vibration issues. I think I used those rings once. But that was a while ago...