Urq BBS split rims

["DRoxburgh" <DRoxburgh@email.msn.com>]

A cautionary tale....

Having bought my Urq earlier this year the biggest (read hardest to cure)
problem was the tendancy of one of the tyres to loose air.

First stop local tyre store, found that two of the four tyres were from
1988, and when removed from the wheels the side walls crumbled....

They were renewed, and now only one tyre lost air....

To cut a long story short, I eventually found Pristine Wheels in Milton
Keynes. They are one of a handleful of wheel shops in the UK which will
handle split rims. So i posted the wheel and tyre to them. The day it was
received I had a call. I was told that the rim had been machined and would
have to be replaced. The centre section ad been powder coated over the bolts
which normally would undo to split the parts of the wheel. Not economic
repair.

Now the next morning at 9am, I get a call from the owner of the business,
saying do not drive the car. He had measured the rim and found it had been
machined to 2.2mm thickness from the original 3.7mm. It was unsafe, if I
were there with the car, he would not let me drive home it was that unsafe
as the rims could fail at any time.

I was a little shocked.

I had bought the car in good faith from a 'specialist', and the reason there
is no name is that I shall be taking this to the Trading Standards Office.

So beware of refurbed split rims, it should only be done by renewing the
outer rim, never machining.

The silver lining to all this, is that my local Audi dealer has ordered me a
set of brand new Ronals, and they were much less than half the money than I
had expected them to be.

So safe driving everyone, and if in doubt, take those wheels to a real
expert and have them checked.....