BearKiller, it almost sounds like you've spent a lifetime in the tire/wheel industry or something...

I never knew those wheels were made in Lexington and definitely by the old BlueGrass stockyards, cool.

I don't understand the "tapers to a 15.5” wheel in the back" either and meant to ask what that meant. The rim bead edge is smaller on the backside???

That was a lot of interesting info, good to know. Thanks for sharing.

 

I do get carried away sometimes... it's terribly embarrassing when I get it wrong once every fifteen years or so...

I have always said that when I do become dictator, things are going to change; there is going to be three sizes of tires, three sizes of wheels, three sizes of U-Joints, three sizes of wheel-bearings, and thus and so with everything else and it is all going to be universal; Small - Medium - Large.

 

Well the company had on amazon that they fit a Dodge.. amazon said they would fit and they do not. After talking with Jegs the wheels they have do not fit either but we took measurements and I could actually talk to someone... I ended up finding a company in WI (custom offsets) and those people rock. I got some nice wheels and my tires are on, super happy and because they're skinny the noise just isn't there. I'm happy... just need to keep on amazon so I can get my $700 back.

 

I like those wheels and the look. Those are the type wheel I been looking for for my Jeeps.

I'll vote for you BearKiller. Well, if dictators did hold elections anyway...

 

The lesson everyone should take from all this is, when dealing in unfamiliar and expensive long-distance territory with things that may or may not fit once they get here, only ever order ONE first to see how that works out before tying up four times the money.

But then, where wheels in boxes and humans on payroll get concerned, never be surprised when things turn out wrong; actually, I am always more surprised when things turn out right.

Two things we used to sell loads of that were always a losing battle were wheels and batteries; we quit handling both years ago --- and then, in 2014, my creep crook brother took everything and that put me out completely..

I won't get into the crook and the batteries, but I will explain about the wheels.

In all the years and all the thousands of sets of wheels, I can not remember a single instance where we ordered a matching set of four wheels and got a matching set of four wheels when the delivery truck rolled in; there would always be at least one wrong wheel in the bunch.

All four boxes may match, with all the correct part-numbers and such, but there is always sure to be at least one wrong wheel in the boxes.

Sometimes, the offender would be a different bolt-pattern.

Different center opening/hub clearance.

Width = There would be three eights and one seven, or three eights and one ten.

Diameter = there would be three fifteens and one fourteen, or three sixteens and one fifteen.

Three standard offsets and one positive or negative offset.

Three white wheels and one black.

Three with a little red and blue pinstripe and one would have the pinstripes reversed or no pinstripes at all.

Three would come all shiny polished and one would be matte.

Three would be black-out and one not.

Many times, I have seen four perfectly matching wheels, all brand-shiny-new in boxes, and one would have a deep scratch; or, in the case of pot-metal wheels (anything claiming to be "Aluminum" or "alloy" or "Mag"), one would have a big chunk of metal broken away and missing --- stand one up on the counter or the tire changer, turn your back for a second, and let it drop to the unforgiving concrete floor below and see what happens.

Quite often, the one oddball in the set would be completely different in every aspect; wider, larger, different bolt-pattern, different metal, different design altogether.

And then, there were those subtle differences that nobody would catch until three weeks after the customer left, happy as a coon in a corn crib, and had put a couple thousand miles on them; and, the roller skate girl at the curb-service diner rolls up and says "why is one of your wheels different"; and, sure enough, once she so thoughtlessly points it out, one is very different and forever after stands out like a sore thumb.

Always, in those cases, the customer has been short-sighted and dumb enough to have let his original wheels get away from him; did he thoughtfully take them home and slide them under the bed; no, he already sold them to that skin-head punk three counties over and that guy already has his tires on them and bolted on his vehicle and also sold his old wheels to somebody else.

Considering all this and considering that it has been happening with every set sold since the beginning of time and the Einstein brain-storms working in the shop have been there for years and they NEVER think to check anything before diving in head and ears and waste a day's endeavors --- of course, there they are on Saturday afternoon, jerking their paycheck out of your hand before you raise the ink-pen off the signature line and they suffer no financial loss whatsoever for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer.


This is how it often played out:

The new wheel buyer AND the guy he has sold his current wheels to both pull in the lot together; they never sell the wheels AND the tires on them, only ever just the wheels, meaning every last one of them is gonna have to be broken down and taken apart.

These shop Einsteins get both trucks up on the hoists at the same time and get seven of the eight wheels involved all mounted up and bolted on; and then, Ol' Hog exclaims "This ain't gonna work" as the sixteen-inch tire falls onto the brand-shiny-new fourteen-inch wheel which already looks twenty years old after they have been pawing around on it with greasy grubby grimy hands that they don't ever wash until fifteen minutes before quit time.


We had one saving grace to these disastrous scenarios; big trucks that go CCHHHhhhhhttttSSHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, owned and operated by the wholesale companies that dealt in these wheels, backed up against the front doors on a regular schedule; some once a week; some twice a week; and some every single day of the week.

The wholesale salesmen called us --- not the other way around with us frustratingly playing answering machine recording artist with people who are never going to respond --- and, they darn sure wanted to keep us happy; what with those trucks being so full of tires when they opened the back door that two pickup loads would come falling out when you released the latches and the only thing in there when he left would be those various wrong wheels from the trip before being returned.

We didn't have to waste a day waiting on the UPS man, nor worry about paying return shipping and wondering whether we would ever see our money again --- as, when that big truck backed up to the door, we owed them a lot more money than they owed us and we could just deduct any discrepancies from the big wad of cash that the driver always left with.

The old man, tightwad that he always was, didn't take long to figure out that he saved twenty percent or more if the driver left with cash in hand instead of us mailing a check after the fact; that twenty-plus percent saved paid for those big shiny green tractors sitting down at the farm and those top-of-the-production-sale Charolais cows standing around in the shade waiting for the next lightning storm; not to mention keeping up that expensive red-headed gold-digger that he married and later wished would fall off a cliff or get eat by wild tigers or get scalpt by wild Indians --- but, she wadn't goin' nowheres so long as the money kept rollin' in; she easily cost four big John Deere tractors a year.


I would be safe in saying, on average, for every set of wheels that we sold, out of pocket, we lost fifty to sixty bucks; it takes a lot of good business to over-ride such bad business.

 

What debate?

At best, my contribution is for what other used, OEM, wheels could fit - and their merits. Much of it rides on coincidence.

 

One point I neglected to add earlier:

There are two terms one must know and understand when dealing with wheels; HUB-Centric and LUG-Centric.

Almost anything built in the last thirty years is HUB-Centric(and many makes long before, such as GM); meaning, the center of the wheel fits the mounting surface of the hub GUN BARREL TIGHT; all the nuts do is hold the wheels on.

Mixing hub-centric pot-metal wheels with ferrous hubs is a recipe for disaster that plagues every tire shop and garage in the world.

Much time is wasted, sometimes more than a day, and many pot-metal wheels destroyed on account of this hub-centric business.

All are problems, regardless of make/model; but, it seems the later model DRW Dodge are the worst; it is a complete nightmare to remove a wheel from the hub; after those wheels have been on there for a few months, you could take the lugnuts off and leave them at home and never be in any danger of losing a wheel.

It is a daily sight at any tire shop to see the guys taking turns, laying under the truck on a creeper, with a big 9-pound sledge-hammer, like the one that killed John Henry --- you remember John Henry --- he worked for the railroad --- these guys swinging that big steel hammer with all the might they can muster while laying on their side, against the back side of those pot-metal wheels ---WHAM -WHAM - WHAM --- until their arms turn to jelly and they have to be pulled out and replaced with a fresh hammer-swinger.

If you have hub-centric wheels, and especially if they are pot-metal, before you go anywhere, go to Harbor Freight and avail yourself of the biggest big orange Dead Blow Hammer they have; jack that thing up and hammer all the wheels off.

Put that big cup-shaped wire-wheel brush on your angle-grinder - they have all that at Harbor Freight - and light in on the hub until it is shiny as a new Nickel.

Get after the mounting surface on the back sides of the wheels as well; but, don't get too carried away, as that pot-metal can't stand much.

Now, with the mounting surfaces clean as a whistle, slather about half-a-bottle of that good old Silver Stuff all over the mounting surface of the hub and on the same area inside the wheel; be generous, half a big bottle per wheel, and you just might have a fighting chance that the wheels will come off when you are on the side of I-24 on Mont Eagle and trying to bolt on the spare.

LUG-CENTRIC wheels are centered by the conical shape of the nuts mating within the conical recesses of the stud holes in the wheel.

Lug-centric wheels almost always have a hair's breadth clearance between wheel center and hub and the lugs/nuts and bolt-circle center the wheel with the axle and also carry the entire load.

It is very rare for a lug-centric wheel to have to be sledge-hammered off.


I will relate this experience I had with the wife's Chevrolet Captiva and pot-metal hub-centric wheels.

Up until this occurence, I had never had reason to have a wheel off the thing.

One very wet and heavily raining morning, she called me and said she was sitting beside the Parkway with a flat tire.

I didn't ride in on no load of pumpkins --- I headed to the rescue with enough tools and such in the truck to take care of any situation that may arise.

The closer I got, the harder it rained, with no let up in sight.

When I got all the nuts off, that wheel was growed to the hub.

In all my years, I have never dealt with a more stuck wheel.

At that time, I had never owned a dead-blow hammer; all I had were big heavy steel = not the best when not wanting to destroy a pot-metal wheel.

I threaded on the nuts a few threads, just in case the wheel did jump off and the car jump off the jacks and squish my guts out my nose holes.

I laid under there, with ice-cold water rolling off both East bound lanes and funneling right down my shirt collar, and hammered and hammered and hammered, rolling the wheel to new territory every few licks.

I beat until I was give out and then I beat some more --- she never did offer to crawl under there and spell me.

Finally, I saw it move the thickness of a worn-out dollar bill = I finally had her going my way...

After about two hundred more good licks, she give her milk and popped loose.

With the spare now bolted on, the wife left with a big Harbor Freight list --- 2-ton trolley jack and the biggest Dead Blow Hammer they have and several bottles of that Silver Stuff.

Once back in home territory, I jacked up every corner of her vehicle; and, using that big orange dead-blow hammer, had to really get rough with every wheel until they finally knocked loose.

I followed my instructions provided above about cleaning and slathering on the Silver Stuff and then bolted back on each wheel.

Since that day, she has had several tires needing plugging and also replacing; and, even after me spending that afternoon initially knocking all the wheels loose and cleaning and slicking things up, in every event since then, no wheel has came off without me giving it one good whack with the dead-blow hammer.

That dead-blow hammer, the trolley-jack, and a piece of 3/4-inch pipe that slips over the lug-wrench is always in her vehicle beside the spare tire.

I never ever use an impact wrench on lug-nuts; however, you never know when some idiot with an impact is going to get in the mix, hence the piece of pipe.

When I was around the tire shop all the time, not a day passed that at least one vehicle arrived on a roll-back on account of a hub-centric wheel being so stuck that they could not get it off with the pitiful tools they had at hand beside the highway --- plus, not everybody is determined and gritty enough to crawl under there with a big hammer -- they have those silly "smart phones" so they can be dumb and get away with it.