Quote:
Originally Posted by Finnegan
Any commentary on how well the wheels noted above hold up for street use? The Apex is a cast wheel, flow formed, not gravity cast, but it's not forged. Given how light it is one might expect it would be easy to bend or otherwise damage....but maybe not (Z4M is reasonably light....). Street use has the occassional pothole or bad road seems to deal with....
|
Out of 1500+ wheels that have been shipped to date, There's never been a single report of a wheel being damaged with exception for curb rash caused by parking, and one customer who's insurance paid for a replacement wheel after a car accident. We haven't even heard of a bent wheel to date. The wheels exceed JWL requirements and have been VIA tested in Japan, which is the same standard the above wheels follow as well.
The wheels are light weight due to the flow-forming technology used in production. This gives the barrel the equivalent strength of a forged barrel. They can take an impact better then traditional casting. The spokes are still cast, but they were thickened multiple times during the engineering and crush testing phase. The reason the wheel is light for a mesh design is because of how we deal with the center section. It's track oriented (open design) and this reduces a lot of metal around the lugs that is unneeded. Also the wheel has no lip. Flow-formed wheels with lips are weaker as the front lip is cast and prone to bending. With our spokes reaching the outer section in multiple points it allows for much better load distribution.