Received my Wheel Vintiques order and I'm a little bummed...

I'm pretty pissed with WV myself. They never answer customer service extension, only sales. Just bought Skylark wire wheels from them and one leaks through the spokes. For $580 a wheel I would expect them to test for leaks before they ship them out and cross their fingers. Sucks.

 

A word here for The Wheelsmith. They made me a pair of custom wheels in 20 minutes when I was in an extreme time crunch. I have always had wonderful service from them and many sets of wheels. Bob and Chris Sage are hot rodders and have been forever. Oh yes, they sell make OEM Chrome wheels in 14. 15 and 16" diameter and supply spider caps too....

www.thewheelsmith.net 1-800-854-8937

 

I bought a set from Early Wheel Company , Haven't driven on them yet, but they look good, price and shipping was cheaper then WV, and he made them quickly.

And he offers a Hamb Discount!

 

I am happy with the way my Smoothies came out from Early Wheel Company 3 of them hardly needed any weights at all and one needed quite a few.
Powder coating looks good, the rings and centers are chinese which i wasn't happy about.
I had originally ordered 16" for the back and after waiting for a couple of months I had to give up and go with 15" because he couldn't come up with the 16" parts.
The only bad part was that he charged my card when I ordered and after a couple of months with no wheels I started to get worried.
He still owes me money for downsizing the rear wheels but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.

 

"Smoothies" are almost always uni-lug.

 

Ok, here it goes... All the wheel parts we (Early Wheel, Rally America, Wheel Vintiques) use are made in the US. caps and rings are all made over seas now, that's where the company that makes them chose to go to keep costs down... Smoothy wheels are always 10 hole...except 6 lug.. 16" wheel parts are very hard to get right now. The company that was making them just isn't stamping the parts...All of the wheel companies are having a bit of a hard time getting parts right now for some specialty..oem,16" etc... We all know each other and help each other out when we can.. When selling lot's of wheels, there is the chance of making someone un-happy. We try to ask anytime someone orders wheels, especially chrome... what caps they plan to run because the wheels have 10 holes in them..

NEWSOMTRAVIS Check your facts... These parts are made in USA.. They are made in southern california at two diff. locations. I have been there and watched them made. The problem is... with the economy... no one wants to stock parts and have them sit till they sell.. Once the company that makes the parts has enough orders to cover the material and stamping all the parts, they get made and then sent out to us the wheel builders...check inside the back of your wheels.. If its made here, it says so...U.S.A. and a dot #

DJUST pm me your contact info...I will make sure this is straightened out.. Your diff. in price between the 15"s and 16" would be $40.00 As for the caps and rings... That's why I leave the stickers on them... People didnt want to pay the 5 more per cap and 4 more per ring to keep them made here....

 

It seems there is a fairly large market for non dual pattern wheels. I didn't buy because they were all I could find and pretty sure there are many others in the same boat. From what I've read enough to make the single patterns worth producing.

 

Jason at Early Wheel made me a set of 16" smoothies for my Willys last year and they are great - he even modified my original 1940 Willys script hubcaps to fit. Another supplier I would be happy to recommend....

 

update: two brand new Skylark wire wheels at a cost of $580 each leaking air through the spokes. First and last time dealing with Wheel Vintiques.

 

Heres a picture of the ones Jason at Early Wheel Company made for me.
They turned out looking really good, caps fit nice and tight, it's to bad about the caps and rings going overseas. I would have paid the extra to get them from here, but I know that is out Jasons control.
If I would have went with 15" all the way around I would have had them at the door pretty quick. Soon as I made the change he got them done and to me.
Looks like with manufactures drying up we might have a hard time in the future to even get these style of wheels made.
Thanks for speaking up Jason, it's nice to see a Vendor come on and explain why things are the way they are sometimes.

 

I bought my WV smoothies about four years ago,and they have been off and on the kart maybe two years total out of four. I bought these WV bullet centres recently and put them on yesterday. The chrome has stood up to the rainy English weather and salty roads very well indeed, so much so that you wouldn't notice the age difference between the centres and the rims at all. All in all I'm very happy with my WV's
Paul

 

I seen a pair of Wheelsmith's oem chrome reverse 15' wheels, very impressive..pre chroming prep looked flaw less, smooth and even, chrome blinding in the direct sun!!..Can't vouch for any run out, centers didn't seem to have enough form [as much as a gm 4.750x5] at the lug nut holes but probably suffice..

 

Just to help out here....

If you do decide to go with Wheel Vintiques it is NOT hard to find what your looking for. The easy way to find 5 lug wheels is to buy their O.E model line. All smoothies will be multi-lug.

O.E
http://www.summitracing.com/search/...d-Chevy-Style-O-E-Chrome-Wheels/?autoview=SKU
says one bolt pattern in the decription of each wheel

smoothies
http://www.summitracing.com/search/...0-Series-Chrome-Smoothie-Wheels/?autoview=SKU
lists both bolt patterns in the description

This isnt rocket science folks. I searched, found, and ordered my wheels...they were in stock and delivered within 24 hours of my phone call to summit.

 

Hey Buzznut.....Don't feel to bad, I've been waiting since the middle of December 2010 for two wheels from the "wheel Kid" ask me how I feel about that ??

 

What i mean by runout is when the wheels are spun on a balancer, they move up and down about 1/8th of an inch. I now have a slight shimy.
I had stock steel wheels on the car before and had no shimy or problems at all.

 

I should also ask, is there any practical way of trueing these rims?Would a wheel repair shop have a way? or would it be cheaper to just get two more rims somewhere else?

 

It would be cheaper to get two wheels. Up and down run out is more of a problem to fix than in and out run out... Jason

 

Update: three wheels now leaking air at a cost of $580/wheel. Wheel Vintiques= Garbage.

 

As stated earlier, dual bolt pattern is a plus, IF your planning on running center caps. It does cut down on inventory for the supplier, BUT on the consumer end , if your on a tight budget and you are putting in a Ford 9 inch rear, when you have GM up front, you save the expense of having rear axles welded and redrilled for GM. Also, if your running the same size wheels and tires, you can rotate Ford with GM. Just my 2 cents.

 

I have Wheel Vintiques on my 46, no problems for probably 40,000 miles.

 

Worthless. Pathetic business ethics. Worst experiece I've ever had in the hotrod community.

 

You can make your on. I have a word file that I can email you if you want, its really cool.

 

Went out to the garage and snapped this pic. This is a 16x4 1/2 WV wheel with a spyder cap and the dual bolt pattern you spoke of. Not the greatest I admit, but I worked with what I had, later.

 

...this thread has really made me think. I have a '53 Chevy I love, and just got a steel on some white walls and was thinking about the O.E style, the WV series 64, or just doing smoothies with the "bullet" center caps. I don't want to drop 750 on 4 WV's and 2 spider caps as I could buy the smoothies and the caps much cheaper. Like I said, this entire thread has really made me think...any suggestions?


Chops