Digesters;

As many visitors to my website know, I've freakin' fascinated by wheels and tires for some strange reason. All this talk about wheels and tires have gotten me excited again (YeeeeeHaaaa!)

One thing that was not mentioned about the lightweight rims for Auto-Xing was durability. Here are some shortcomings of some of the listed rims.

BBS RC - Light, but spun cast. Casting, as you know, is not the strongest manipulation of aluminum.

Fiske - Only the centers are forged. The rims halves are not. Anodized rim halves are extra and a necessity if you don't want the aluminum to corrode.

Magnesium - Like aluminum, does not have warnings of fatigue, however, even worse so in this case.

In the bicycle industry, we were always trying to get our bikes lighter and lighter while sacrificing strength. Well, before I left, the industry was on the swing away from mega lightweight, but reponsible light weight. No sense getting sued over a handlebar that broke because it was 15 grams too light.

This leaves few manufacturing methods as ideal. However, it does point to a FULLY FORGED wheel as one of the strongest (maybe not lightest) alternative. The forged 5-spoke LTW wheels that I just got weigh only 20 lbs. and cost around $500 (less if you know the right people) in the 17x7.5 size. Oh yeah, they also fit my M3 perfecting (I wonder why).

Thanks to Precision Tire and Wheel in Ridgewood, NJ who dismounted, mounted, and dynamically balanced my new LTW rims in 35 minutes and for only $50 for all 4. The 40 series Michelin MXX3's didn't even make them sweat. At 90 mph, not a wiggle, not a wobble. No wonder Prestige BMW sends their cars there. Also no wonder why many local BMW NA employees go there, too.

Ben

                    Ben Liaw - Applications Programmer 
                      Advanced Techology Corporation
                            bliaw_at_vetstar.com
                    "Visualize Whirled Peas" - Unknown