troubles with aftermarket rims (long)

["Walter" <Whalt@xxxx>]

I have probably wasted around $2k on aftermarket low profile rims & tires.
The dealer was being real picky about making sure that the rear rims & tires
were exactly the right size & offset. This gave me a false sense of
security because when I found out what he did to make rims fit the front, I
was seriously pissed off. Instead of using the OEM size of 6" wide, he used
7". This put an extra 1/2" on either side. Since the OEM configuration on
many DeLoreans has the tire rub the sway bar (mine is no exception), it was
even worse with the wider rims. Only in my case, it was the metal part of
the rim that rubbed the sway bar and not the rubber tire. This severely
restricted my turning radius forcing me to make 3 point turns where I could
otherwise have just made a U-turn. If I kept it up, I was worried that this
might score the sway bar enough for it to break. Rob Grady told me that he
had only heard of one case of a sway bar breaking before. This was while
the car was still under the original manufacture's warranty. Luckily the
guy was only going around 5mph, but it still almost made him eat a curb. At
higher speed, it would probably be worse than a trailing arm bolt breaking.

Besides the trouble I was having with swaybar scraping and reduced turning
radius, I was also having some weird vibrations at highway speeds. Having
someone follow me and watch the front end confirmed that a front tire was
shaking sideways as though it would pivot if I were shaking the steering
wheel (rather than the wheel bouncing up & down like a balance problem). I
got home and checked my lug nuts. One was loose and off-center. I took the
wheel off and checked everything out. When I try to put the wheel back on
the hub, I realize that the lugs don't line up properly with the holes in
the rim. Each hole was around 1 to 2mm off spec. I know that the DeLorean
takes a 4 on 100 spacing (that's 4 bolts on a 100mm diameter circle), but it
was anyone's best guess what these rims were drilled at because each hole
was drilled at a random radius and degree position. It was as if the
machinist drilled them with his eyes closed!

Next, I took the rear wheels off. I found out that the spacer the dealer
had made up was too thin to hold the lug nuts. The nuts stuck out from the
spacer by about 0.5mm which was enough to put marks on the rims where the
dealer torqued them down with an impact wrench. Then I learned for the
first time that all DeLoreans came with 1/4" spacers on the rear hubs.
Well, if the dealer had half a brain to notice this, then he could have made
the adaptors deeper. I mentioned this to him, and he said that he saw this
before but didn't want to bother with taking them off. There are two
problems with this: 1) I didn't buy the style of rim I originally wanted
because with the available offset and 'minimum' adaptor thickness
requirements this rim would have stuck out 1/4" too far. However, the
dealer never mentioned to me that the front rims were going to stick out
1/2" further on both sides of the rim! Gag! 2) Even with my second choice
of style, the guy could have taken the spacer off and had all the room he
needed to make his adapters deep enough.

Other nice little facts that the dealer did not disclose to me:
1) He was re-drilling the front rims.
2) Re-drilling voids the manufacture's warranty.
3) the rear adaptors & rims were not mounted hubcentric.
4) Mounting the rims lugcentric (not hubcentric) also voids the
manufacture's warranty.
5) I got screwed.

Other stupid things the dealer did to my car:
1) jacked it up from the wrong points denting & cracking the epoxy on my
frame.
2) tightened the lug nuts with an impact wrench way beyond the OEM spec of
60 ft-lbs torque. After that my car developed a pulsating brake problem.
Hummm... I wonder why?

The dealer took the front rims back to his machinist to have the lug holes
re-drilled in the right locations. He even had me go across town with my
car so that the machinist could indeed verify the proper lug spacing. They
called me up a few days later to pick the rims up from the machine shop.
This is something the dealer should have done, but I wanted to talk with the
machinist about making a pair of wider hubcentric spacers for the rear.
That was my official reason. Actually, I wanted to see for myself just what
kind of idiots work in the back. When I went to pick them up, the machinist
told me that he used an industrial form of JB-Weld (something that was much
stronger than anyone could buy retail) to hold the steel inserts that line
the lug holes. I thought, "Oh great, JB-Weld is holding my rims together."

I get the rims home and try them on the car myself. To my amazement, the
machinist did absolutely nothing to the rims except scratch them up a bit.
The holes were still in their previous wrong locations with the same steel
sleeves lining the holes. I got a screwdriver and hammer and drove the
sleeves out of one of the rims, and (guess what) there was no trace of any
JB-Weld type of substance under them. Likewise, there was no evidence that
the rims had been re-drilled a second time.

I could say a lot more, but I have already said too much. Let this be a
lesson to the rest of you who try to find aftermarket rims to fit your
DeLoreans.

Walt Tampa, FL