For a paltry $10K a wheel you can have a custom set made out of carbon fiber cutting your wheel weight by as much as 50%. Of course if you hit a big pot hole you'd likely end up crying your eyes out.


Vitesse AuDessus releases ultralight carbon fiber sports car wheels

 

The new mustang doesn't seem to have any problems so far...

 

At first I I thought $10K didn't sound bad at all, until I read that it's $10K per wheel, so $40K for the set! You could just wrap your wheels CF

 

I would be more afraid of the local tire shop than the potholes.

 

That's because the car (GT350R) hasn't even been released yet...

 

The Veyron's Service Schedule includes replacement wheels every other year.

An Annual Service comes in at £12k.

 

Yet one more reason not to buy a Veyron... But I guess if you can afford the car you can afford the service.

 

My 20" genuine wheels have carbon fibre inserts already.

 

Lol so do mine but they are just bolt on trim pieces and as such they don't thrill me. Kind of embarrassing to explain the CF is just for looks.

I got the Blades primarily because they were forged whereas every other OEM rim offered in '14 was cast. I have cracked several cast aluminum rims over the years and really wanted the stronger forged rims to hopefully avoid going through that again.

Now there are forged Storms as well and those look a little better than the Blades IMHO. Hopefully I can get into a set of Storms so I can alternate the two.

Real, structural CF elements would be much more desirable than what jag did with the CF trim bolted to the spokes of the Blades IMHO.

 

While you are correct that forged wheels are the strongest, there are multiple methods for casting that result in widely varying strength.

Most cheap after-market stuff is "gravity cast" which the most susceptible to cracking and often doesn't meet the more rigorous wheel certification standards. As explained in the link below, there are more costly casting processes (primarily using higher pressures) that do meet the most rigorous OEM wheel certification standards.

http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/tech/....jsp?techid=90

 

Yes I was just joking, the CF is purely for looks, and in fact on the dark grey/black wheels you have to look closely to even see them.

 

OEM cast wheels have failed me in everyday use. They weren't cheap aftermarket rims. I dont buy cheap aftermarket rims, or any aftermarket rims at all for that matter.

One was a 19" VW Touareg wheel that had experienced no trauma. I noticed the crack when I was putting air in the tire. Had to spend $300 on a used replacement but at least it didn't disintigrate at high speed. One was a 17" Mercedes wheel that hit a pothole and cracked. In fact all four of the Mercedes rims eventually got replaced. One was a 17" Ford rim that impacted a curb at 10 mph and broke in half. The VW experience was particularly troubling as I did nothing to hurt the rim and it still cracked in the middle of a spoke. Those were all on my cars in the past 10 years. None of them were 180 mph cars.

One of Jaguar's cast wheels cracked during a long term test by one of the car magazines. They mentioned it was a problem others had reported as well. This, and the performance capability of the car, as well as my experience in the past, are the reasons why I sought out the forged rims on this car. If I can find the article I will cite it specifically.

I don't know if Jaguar's forged wheels are much better than their cast ones but I assume that to be the case.

 

If you hit the right pothole or curb hard enough, you can crack and deform a forged wheel as well. I've had damaged forged wheels as well.

 

That's a definite no no here in San Francisco...