[AMNick]

Originally Posted by MamaStang Nick turns me on when he talks like that.

What can I say, I am a...

Originally Posted by mattstang i dont see how you can even come to that conclusion nobody asked for your opinion on how to bolt a wheel on or what caused this. i will pm nick and see about mailing him pictures. btw am installed the tires

Just replied to your PM earlier.

Everyone play nice for now, like I said its bad enough this tire shop is trying to say the wheels are bad quality without any way of testing or backing up their accusation. Nobody here is definitively saying who is to blame without all the evidence. Everyone is just offering their opinions on the matter which is what is going to happen if you post something up on a public forum, if you want to deal with something privately that is what PM's are for. But we are not going to put the blame on anyone or anything until we actually know what caused this. I'll definitely get to the bottom of this.

-Nick

[mattstang]

Your drawing a conclusion by looking at a picture which is less than the shop did so how can you say your judgement is any better or worse.

As for weems he wants to say his opinion for arguments sake but when I got ripped off by a mod then he's nowhere to be found. So I guess I expected about the same response from the mods on here. None.

[winnie51189]

That pic was tiny? How can we see anything in it?

[mattstang]

It doesn't enlarge when you click it?

[BakerFX4]

that pic is really 1cm by 1cm. what is anyone supposed to do with that. maybe matt is just trying to hide the real evidence that would be visible with a bigger pic....










































Just messing with you bro. I am neutral and in no way against you. I hope you can get it figured out!

[AMNick]

OK, I looked at the images that you sent and also showed them to several other people here including a few people here that we employ that have engineering backgrounds. Right off the bat they all said the damage looks exactly like the type of damage that would be caused by severe impact to a cast aluminum wheel. Cast aluminum wheels, while much lighter and more rigid than steel wheels, are far less ductile and tend to crack or break from extreme impact instead of giving and bending like a steel wheel. If you look at where I circled in red in image 3, it looks like you can see scrapes and then metal distortion at the point of initial impact before the gouge, where the opposite side of the gouge looks like a clean break.







I attached a few images of one of our employee vehicles that has Genuine Ford OEM Polished Bullitt Wheels on it for comparison. He slid when coming to a stop during a snow storm earlier this year and hit his wheel on the curb. As you can see it has the exact same injury as your wheel and this is a Genuine Ford OEM wheel and not our wheel.





I am not trying to pass the buck here, or judging or condemning your story, I am only giving our combined professional opinion from the images you sent. From what you said in your posts, your car lost control, went flying into a ditch at 50 miles per hour, and when you looked at your wheel after this accident the chunk was missing. The most likely scenario given this story and the images you presented us is that the chunk of wheel was taken out as a result of the accident, either from hitting something in the road, or when you went flying into the ditch.

Even so, if you feel the images you sent me are not portraying the damage well enough, then I can definitely give you the warranty claim paperwork and we'll get the wheel back here and check it out first hand before sending it to the manufacturer for warranty, but just looking at the images you sent, the circumstances of the accident, and how aluminum wheels react to a 50mph impact, it really does not look like structural defect.

-Nick

[03SonicBoom]

The picture you need to be looking at is the surface of the crack. You need to show DETAILED pictures of the metal that shouldn't normally be showing (the break). When you look at this surface (and know what you're looking at) it will show you if the break was caused by an impact force or if it was a defect.

[AMNick]

Originally Posted by 03SonicBoom The picture you need to be looking at is the surface of the crack. You need to show DETAILED pictures of the metal that shouldn't normally be showing (the break). When you look at this surface (and know what you're looking at) it will show you if the break was caused by an impact force or if it was a defect.

Pictures were provided by the customer so its all we have to work with. That's why I said if he felt the images were not properly portraying the situation we could take the wheel back here to look first hand. But the pictures as provided look to be impact damage.

[03SonicBoom]

Originally Posted by AMNick Pictures were provided by the customer so its all we have to work with. That's why I said if he felt the images were not properly portraying the situation we could take the wheel back here to look first hand. But the pictures as provided look to be impact damage.

I wasn't intending it to say you were right or wrong. I was stating that so he would hopefully take pictures of it so we can see.

[mattstang]

That distortion and clean break is the lip of the wheel that had mud wiped off while it was wet. That picture looks like someone put a magnifier over it.

I would expect the damge if I hit a curb but not when I hit mud and grass in an interstate shoulder at not really an aggresive angle at all.

I don't really understand how or why a proffesional mettalurgical engineer would work for a mail order retail company but since you say you got em I guess you do.

There isn't a shear point that I can see and from my limited metalurgy experience things don't break for no reason. Some sort of stress always breaks something. The question is whether a product is designed to handle it. Since no other damage to any wheels or my car occured it kinda raises a flag to me that somethings up.
I went back the following day and found no debris or piece or pieces of my wheel which would lead me to believe nothing was in the shoulder and my wheel didn't break their either. The pieces could be there and got flung but when somethings tall enough to take out a wheel the pieces usually stay nearby.

And no I'm not gonna waste more money and time by mailing you my wheel. I will take it to a shop local in the town I live or where I am currently working. I'm only out a lil over a hundred now and that doesn't bother me much anyway. But to continue to waste time and effort grows old fast.

I was traveling at about 50 when my car started to skid. When I went into the shoulder I was in the brakes not standing on them and had already corrected out of the other lane then couldn't keep up and went about 8 foot from the solid white onto the shoulder. So I wasn't moving fifty and slammed into a ditch. I slid onto a graded shoulder at about 30 40 and drove it right back to the lane and realized I had a flat then found the busted wheel. Which is why the mud was wiped off in some spots. I didn't clean it when I took pictures to prove I'm not trying to dr it up.

[mattstang]

Can you post a pic of a wheel that has been warrantied?

[BWAL]

so you were just driving down the road and a big chunk of your wheel just popped off and made you spin out?

it seems like a wheel that was defective enough to just break in half would have been very noticeable

[03SonicBoom]

Originally Posted by BWAL09 so you were just driving down the road and a big chunk of your wheel just popped off and made you spin out? it seems like a wheel that was defective enough to just break in half would have been very noticeable

I've been driving a John Deer tractor through a field just like normal and the front wheel just fell off. The axle wasn't designed correctly and fatigue would cause it to break over a fairly short period of time.

It doesn't require large forces to break metal, just small repetitive forces.

[takiller]

[QUOTE=mattstang;2252976]The people that installed the wheels and front tires are in oklahoma



theres your problem right there buddy

[winnie51189]

Sounds like the tractor had an incident with a re-entrant corner