My Wobbly Z06 Wheels:

I ordered these wheels from Performance Wheel Outlet (PWO) back in August of 2001, knowing they they would be a while before they were available (painted silver).  No big deal.  The salesman assured me that I would not be billed until the wheels were about to be shipped to me. 

I was busy with work and moving into a new house, and winter was approaching, so I wasn't in a hurry.  To my surprise, the charges for the wheels showed up on my October MasterCard bill. Calling PWO, I found the salesman I had been dealing with had left the company, but they assured me that the wheels were but a week away and that there was no need to panic.

Lesson #1: don't give out your credit card number until you know they have the stuff at hand, so they can't bill you early.  My theory is that the salesman, knowing he was leaving, ran my purchase through in order to collect the commission on the sale.  Should've cancelled at that point.

It is now the middle of November.  They lead me along for a few more weeks with assurances of "the wheels will be here in days".  Back home, I'm gearing up to move my wife, kids, and 14,000 lbs of our stuff (one tractor trailer load) from one house to another in 24 hours.  And I am not ready for the movers.

I move into my new house.  Sleep deprivation for five days does not help, and the movers do about $1500 damage to the house and furniture.  Fortunately, I did not prepay this one, and deducted the repairs from the moving bill.

So the wheels do arrive at PWO, and ship to me December 17th.  With Christmas delays, they show up Dec 27 (I paid for them Oct 31).

I had these wheels shipped to my place of work, as I don't want a FedEx truck attempting to find my out-of-the-way house with nobody home.  I fax all the details for clarification, but PWO still ships them to my house.

Lesson #2: Clarity.  Well, in this case I tried, using faxes where I could, but it still depended of them being read at the other end.  But I tried.

I get the wheels.  I was assured they would be double boxed - they weren't.  Once home, I pull a front wheel off of the Camaro, and then bolted each wheel in place to check for "roundness".  There was quite the wobble in three of the wheels, in the .020" range (about half your typical spark plug gap).  Calling PWO, they assured me that the construction of these wheels was such that damage in transit was not an issue.  I took the wheels to the tire shop for a second opinion - the tire shop documentation I have says “three of the four wheels had completely unacceptable movement in the inner half of the barrel.”  So I wasn't about to use them as-is, and even the wheel that had the least movement appeared to have a bent lip.

Talking to the returns guy, he assured me that they only allow three thousands of an inch (.003") of runout and they have not had other complaints.  I was warned that if PWO did not find any problems with the wheels that I would have to pay shipping costs.  Confident that no one could miss the wobble in these wheels (movement in the .003" range is barely visible to the unaided eye) I shipped them back to PWO for inspection.  The return paperwork gets shipped from PWO via FedEx to the wrong address.

Okay, in retrospect, I should have taken my wheels at this point and just had them repaired locally. 

So PWO checks the wheels, and finds them free of problems.  I find this hard to believe, since I could see and measure this in my garage (and the tire shop), and they saw nothing.  Literally.  "Can't you see any wobble?".  Nope.  They don't look at the wheels, just measure them.  Since they might read the instruments like they read my faxes, I give up.  Maybe I'm seeing things.  Maybe I'll just get them fixed myself.

My problem now is that they won't give my money back without a restocking fee, with the accusation that "I've changed my mind and just want something different".  So I have the wheels shipped back to me as it was cheaper that eating the restocking fee and having to buy another set of wheels from someone else, with similar problems, etc. The wheels get shipped to the wrong address. Fortunately, the shipper for my company does a lot of volume with FedEx and is able to catch this and redirect the shipment.  

When I shipped the wheels to PWO, I was careful the pack the wheels exactly as they were when I got them.  The face of each wheel had a cloth cover, a plastic lip protector on the outer edge, and sealed n a clear bag.

When I got the wheels back, I could see that the person that reboxed my wheels clearly did not give a ****.  The protective packing was missing or just thrown in the box.  While double-boxed (unlike the first trip), one of the wheels was in a generic box instead of the factory's heavy-duty three-walled version. As the wheel was loose inside the box it cut through the thinner cardboard, then the outer (there was zero packing to stop the inner box from falling around inside the outer), and the exposed wheel lip was scuffed (and under inspection, slightly bent). The wheel was face down in the box.  The pictures show the generic inner box compared to the factory box, a close up on the hole, the outer box, and the scuffed wheel/bent lip.  

Nice packaging.  Not.

So I have the wheels back, take them to a local shop that specializes in wheel repair (http://www.greensautomotiveltd.supersites.ca), and had them measure (as I watched) the runout for each wheel. 

After collecting these numbers, I talked to PWO and they again assured me that these wheels all tested less than .003” of runout, and he did not see the bent lip.  He couldn’t explain how I could see that they were out of round (I am an hobbyist fabricator and home mechanic), or why the guys at the tire shop said send ‘em back, or how Green’s measurements concur with my original measurements.  

What I find most frustrating is that the person inspecting the wheels at PWO could/would not simply look for an out-of-round problem.  If myself, the tire shop, and the staff at two machine shops can clearly see the wobble in these wheels before even picking up a runout gauge, how could PWO see "nothing".  Maybe I would be understanding if they could say something like "there is slight movement but it is within our documented allowance".  And publish that allowance somewhere - like their web page.  PWO's response tells me they don't know what they're doing, they are simply lying, or they confused my wheels with someone else's.

Lesson #3: when the dealer/supplier/manufacturer says nothing is wrong with the product, get a second opinion.  If I had put these tires on these wheels and tracked a vibration problem back to them, I'd be choked.

I know that if I can see movement on the barrel that this could translate into a balance and vibration problem when mounted on the car.  These wheels are not going on an old clunker, and the 35 series tires are not going to be very forgiving of any vibration problems.

I documented the above, and again faxed it off to the manager at PWO.  A senior guy there called me and it turns out that PWO's allowable runout is actually .030".   This explains why PWO thinks my wheels are "acceptable" ("perfect" in their words). What can I do if the people handling the returns are misinformed? Had I known this, I would not have shipped the wheels back and incurred $200+ in shipping charges.  Maybe you can balance a .030" wobble out of a wheel, maybe not (I wouldn't try).  Take out your spark plug gapper to see what I mean. 

So I took the wheels to another shop http://www.pantherwheels.com and had them measure the wheels.  Their measurements were the same as Green's (+/- .002").  The -.055" measurement did not show up, so that must have been a mistake on Green's part, but both machine shops were very surprised that the dealer would expect me to put tires on these wheels.   Panther also showed me that the scuff mark was not dirt but paint damage (touch-up paint would do) and that the lip was bent out slightly.  They thought they might have to paint the entire wheel (especially if heat was used), but when I took them back the following week, they fixed all four without any full repainting required.

Now that the wheel measurements have been verified (these wheels are definitely out-of round), I emailed the PWO using the senior guy's email address.  Since I was misinformed on PWO's allowable runout, they should be liable for the extra shipping costs, and the repaint of the scuffed wheel.  To be fair, I elected not to repaint that one wheel, and let them know on a follow up email (the receipt of each email has been confirmed).   It's been a couple of weeks now, and there has been no response from the management at PWO. 

Payment for the repairs? If they've got it documented somewhere that they can live with wheels that are .030" out of round, I'm not going to fight it any further.

If they would at least cover the shipping costs (due to their misinformed staff) this write-up would take on an entirely more positive tone. 

NOTE: I did hold back publishing this in order to give them a chance to respond.  After all, I don't know if it was the boss's son that screwed up, or they just have poor customer service.

Lesson #4: Don't buy from Performance Wheel Outlet.  There are plenty of other places selling these wheels now.  Just be sure to get the wheel checked before getting the tires mounted.

FWIW, a few years ago, when I ordered a set of three-piece wheels from http://www.usacomp.com/ a two of them appeared to be bent in shipping.  They promptly sent a check to cover the cost of repairs. Imagine that.

We all make mistakes, and I've done my share recently.  I hope that this helps even a few people avoid the hassles I've had.

DaveH (acarnut @ telus.net)