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1st Gen. Ram - All TopicsDiscussion for all Dodge Rams prior to 1994. This includes engine, drivetrain and non-drivetrain discussions. Anything prior to 1994 should go in here.
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.
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.
05-16-2024, 04:08 AM
