Waxy

Back in January I had a set of 17" Oz Superleggera's with SO2 215/40 fitted to my scoob and I must say I was impressed at the difference they made.

Last week while cleaning I noticed that the front nearside rim had a flat spot so I dropped into the tyre place that had originally supplied and fitted them to see if the damage could be repaired or whether a new wheel would be required. The initial response was that they probably would be able repair it but that it would probably need refurbishing as well at a total cost of £75-ish. As I still had the original set of 16" wheel and tyres I decided to run on those for the four days that it would take to repair and refurb the wheel. Back at the tyre place while all the Superleggera's off the care we took a closer look a the damaged wheel only to find that it was quite severly buckled ( you can only really see this off the car when it's spinning ), their recommendation was that they problably would be able to repair it to be true again and that it might be better to relace the wheel, on an impluse I asked them to check the other wheels, the the rear nearside was also well out of true and the offside pair showed smaller imperfections as well.

The point of this tale is that I don't remember hitting anything large or falling down any holes or drains and I'm the sort of person that pulls over when I hear things "rattling underneath"

So is the very stiff sidewall on the 215/40 SO2's a contributing factor to the apparent ease of which these rims were damaged ? ( not to mention the appalling state of UK roads)

I would be interested to hear of any others who have had similar problems.

CraigH

Someone mentioned to me a while back about their doubts of the strength of SuperLegerras for heavyish cars like a Scoob/EVO.

Whether this is true or not is a different matter of course, but it's not uncommon for some aftermarket wheels to become flat spotted unfortunately.

bigrex

Does this sound anything like the problems on Audi RS4's. They run ultra lightweight alloys which are designed to deform before overloading the suspension components.

Waxy

CraigH - Yea, the strength of the superleggera's was in the back of my mind when I bought them, should have let it come to the front of my mind huh

But IIRC the Scoob 'only' weighs about 1275Kg, admittedly I've have a Leda B setup with its' 9" 275lb springs at the front, but I'd guess that the spring would have to be fully compressed before there would be enough force to bend the wheel, then again what do I know.

If this is a "weak" wheel design we'll only know from the number of problems that get reported.

Bigrex - I can see the engineering point of view of introducing a weak link into a system in the event of "well out of design forces", but if this is true we'll all be going into our local tyre places to have our rims replaced every x miles instead of our tyres umm now I come to think of it an 215/40x17 SO2 is about £120 and the Superleggera is about £160

Of course when I decided to replace two of the wheels I find out what everyone else in the UK has discovered - There are none in the country, October maybe

The boots are still good so I might try a different rim, suggestions anyone ?

StanS

iTrader: (3)

I buckled 2 Stilauto SR500 x 17" in major potholes (3-4" deep x 2ft long water filled) then a month later did the same on the new replacements in a different similar hole. Suffolk roads are so well maintained !!
Since bought Mimm rims and had the Stilautos balanced for track days to find all 4 were slightly buckled but balanceable. Suspect the design (10 spoke) may be too weak for my roads. Shame cos the design is brilliant visually.
Stan

Ian E

iTrader: (1)

I've got 17" OZ P1 alloys with Bridgestone SO2 215/40/17 tyres. I do a lot of driving in the Lakes / Dales and so far this combination has been OK despite the poor state of some of the roads. I hit a very large pothole last weekend and expected damage but it seemed OK on close inspection.

The P1 wheels are a lot heavier than the Superleggeras - and even more expensive I've not heard of any P1 owners with wheel problems so maybe its a stronger design and more suited to Scoobs?

Cheers,

Ian.

[This message has been edited by Ian E (edited 20 September 2001).]

JFB

Waxy

That's effing brilliant!!!

I have the same wheels/tyres on mine and I've hit the odd rut in the country so now you've got me thinking. Did you feel anything different in the handling like vibrations or anything before you found the flat spot? This could be very serious, I mean what happens on the motorway when one slams on the brakes like APs or something and the wheel decides to "deform" under the extra braking pressure?

This is NOT good at all

But thanks for raising the point Waxy, better learn here rather than lane 3!

Jerome

TURBO7379

Do yourselves a favour and fit a set of compomotive motorsport alloys . They are virtually indestructable and also look the dogs . I have mangled several tyres in potholes ( there are quite a few around here ) and the only damage to the rims is a small chip out of one of them . The lad in the tyre shop told me that if I had any other rim fitted I'd have been replacing them long ago . Slightly more expensive to start with but last a lifetime .

Derek

JIM THEO

Hi Waxy

I run a set of 17" OZ Superturismo Gold with 215/40 Michelin Pilot Sport (softer than S02 of course) without any problem (yet).
But bear in mind our "flat" roads with the giant potholes and compare with yours!
As I know SuperT have the same compound like P1 Golds so maybe it's a better choice than SuperL, may be due to different design.

Jim

PS:I thought that SuperL are stronger than SuperT!

Waxy

Thanks for the replies.

JFB - The only thing I felt was a slight vibration back through the steering wheel at moderate to high speeds, so I wasn't unduly worried by it at the time. As I mentioned before I couldn't correlate the onset of this vibration with one of those stomach sinking occasions when you feel and hear the result of a impact you know is gonna hurt.

I don't belive that braking would have the same effect as the forces generated by hitting a pot hole as the forces are generated over different time periods ( oh my gawd, I'll be digging out my old physics notes next and arguing with SdB )

Jim - Didn't the WRC use the Superturismo in tarmac config a couple of years ago, so I guess they found the wheel ok.

StanS - Interesting about the Stilauto SR500 I notice they are a similar design to the Superleggera.

TURBO7379 - Which Compomotive wheels do you have ? MO, TH2, EVO1 or RL. I tried to get a set of MO late last year but couldn't get hold of a set with the right offset.

Mike

Pete Croney

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Waxy:
<B>
Jim - Didn't the WRC use the Superturismo in tarmac config a couple of years ago, so I guess they found the wheel ok.

StanS - Interesting about the Stilauto SR500 I notice they are a similar design to the Superleggera.


[/quote]

Yes, in forged Magnesium. Yours for £600 a corner

They are now banned from WRC use, because of their cost.

Waxy

Hi Peter

Thanks for info on WRC SuperT's

I notice on your Web page you have some KN motorsport wheels but I couldn't find a price for them, how much guv ?


Mike

CraigH

If you want STRONG wheels, compomotive or raceline are the answer for reasonable money.

Why not speak to OZ and find out what the design specs are for this wheel?

Adam M

Or better yet, buy the group n super ts, which are available in road and race trim, offering different levels of sturdiness.

They arent the magnesium ones pete is talking about but they still look the part, being strangely different from the horrible road going oz super t evolutions. Only probnelm being you cant buy them unless you race group n rally cars and are connected with motorsport supplier.

GW2000

Wow, I was seriously considering buying a set of Superleggera's with S02 today after taking 2-3 months to decide. Don't tell me I have to start my thought process again - CTRL-ALT-DEL CTRL-ALT-DEL. Very sad I know....

The MiMs are quite familiar to the SLs, has anyone had any problems with them?? I wonder what OZ have to say?

Ian

LEE P

i have P1 alloys wih 205/45/17 on my00, drive constantly on rough A and B roads and a few forest tracks, no problem with to date. was going to get superleg but thought the P1 wheels my be better for job as designed for scoobs. cheers Lee