Well it was a nice sunny day today and with it being a local holiday, I decided to give the car a wash. And with the inevitable risk of being asked to accompany the missues round the shops if I wasn't doing anything else, I decided the car was getting its full winter prep.
So wash, tar remover, claying , polish and sealant all applied, windows polished and car dysoned out.
But I reckon, overall that each wheel took the best part of 15 mins each and my car only has standard Seat 7 spoke alloys. I dread to think how long it would take to clean if you had these multi-spoke wheels that you see! When I get my next car I will definitely have a look at the wheels and see how easy they are to clean!
I remember back to the days that my ZX , Saxo, 309 and first Scenic had wheeltrims, 1 minute per trim was all that was required!
Anyone still have cars with wheeltrims??
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...Anyone still have cars with wheeltrims??...
No, but I agree with your comments.
Ford used to fit basic spec Mondeos with plastic trims, which I thought looked well.
I don't believe the extra unsprung weight of a steel wheel would adversely effect the handling of the type of cars most us drive, or the type of driving most of us do.
Although I've not had the opportunity to prove that.
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I've a car with wheel trims, they're in the shed and will go back on if and when I sell it.
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...they're in the shed and will go back on if and when I sell it...
You should take more Pride in the appearance of your car. :)
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But I do.
It wears its dents, mud and various shades of turd (depending on what previously inhabited the field last) proudly.l
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>> I don't believe the extra unsprung weight of a steel wheel would adversely effect
Except of course that, as someone proved on one of the MG discussion boards a while back by weighing them, pressed steel wheels are lighter than alloy road wheels, wire wheels are lighter than both.
Racing alloys are an entirely different kettle of fish.
The big plus with road alloys is that when you hit that brick in the road, the rim's unlikely to buckle and shed the tyre.
Weird bit: Toyota Prius has alloys with plastic trims on......?!?
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...pressed steel wheels are lighter than alloy road wheels...
Further proof, if any were needed, that any difference would be lost on me.
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>> Further proof, if any were needed, that any difference would be lost on me.
>>
>>
A bit like those folk that can tell what tyres are fitted to their cars without looking. :)
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>> A bit like those folk that can tell what tyres are fitted to their cars
>> without looking. :)
+1 (except for winter tyres when on wintery roads).
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I have just done the same to the Vectra......Shampoo, polish, sealant/wax, windows & mirrors cleaned inside and out interior fully cleaned and carpets shampoo'd Alloys cleaned, buffed and where sparkling.
Just come back from our trip "down south" to Devon and the wheels are filthy again and its hard work getting them wheels looking good.
Brakes seem to omit a lot of dust and I admit that alloys do look good but I wonder is it worth the hard work?
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I agree Bobby. In a month or so I'll think about swapping my wheels to the steels with all season tyres now sitting in the garage. Meanwhile I'll be finding some plain looking wheel covers. I can't wait to store the Carlos Fandangos.
Most alloys wheels are horrible, tacky style-driven efforts with no basis in practicality.
How I would love to have a set of Dunlop racing alloys like these for the MX5 - if they didn't cost more each than I paid for the car!
www.classic-jaguar-racing.co.uk/pop_up.php?prod=121
Or how about this wheel on a Ferrari 330 I snapped on a car event I took part in this weekend. Perfection. I might even have a BMW if they came with wheels like that.
goo.gl/t7Tn1
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Someone ought to invent wheel trims that will stay on without the need for cable ties.
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The FRV wheeltrims are held on by the wheelbolts.
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Wheel trims go in the dishwasher easier than wheels.
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>> Someone ought to invent wheel trims that will stay on without the need for cable ties.
The later Allegro wheel trims were held in place by the bolts.
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Remember my dad's Peugeot 505 wheeltrims were held on by the bolts.
So are alloys a result of consumer driven desire or forced on us by the manufacturers?
I would have thought that latterly, the price of genuine wheel trims would have meant that the manufacturers would have wanted to keep them. Seem to remember my ZX or Scenic was about £20 for a genuine trim.
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Consumer desire of course, for a fashion item rather than a better technical design.
Your fancy alloy wheel option has its shoe equivalent in a pair of tasselled loafers - no use for a proper walk.
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Manufacturers offer all sorts of "factory fit" alloy wheels for those customers who want to personalise their cars without risk of increased insurance premiums.
It's a nice little earner, with a good mark-up for them. Just like satnavs...and tow-bars...and leather...and roof-bars...and cycle racks....and . . .(volume fades down)
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The Mondeo has wheeltrims as it's an LX. Apart from alloy wheels, the only other extra features the next model up has are front foglights and climate control instead of plain aircon.
One of the 'trims went missing a month ago, I finally bought a replacement from ebay last week for 99p as it was listed in the wrong category and only had 8 views - all the others were getting 15+ bids and selling for almost 20 quid. All four are now cable-tied on :)
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Mon 26 Sep 11 at 22:58
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My Panda has them thankfully, as I am still a little prone to hitting kerbs occasionally. They are however bolted on with the wheel trims, so replacing them means you need to remove the wheels.
Alloys are just an expensive item to replace if they get damaged, although my dads are 14 years old and fine.
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Of course most cars used to have steel wheels yet managed without wheel trims, and looked fine.
IIRC someone on here (or HJ) had a Vauxhall (Vectra?) which had wheel trims that really did look like alloys. This was mainly due to the steel wheels underneath having holes corresponding to the holes in the trims so you couldn't see them. Did they have a special name?
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>> Did they have a special name?
Yes - ‘Structure’ wheel
www.carpages.co.uk/vauxhall/vauxhall-vectra-27-08-05.asp
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Not noticed them before... excellent idea.
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My Vectra has got these Structure wheels. Quite convincing and cheap to replace when they're badly scratched.
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Forget wheel trims, bring back the vinyl roof.
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>> My Panda has them thankfully, as I am still a little prone to hitting kerbs occasionally.
>> They are however bolted on with the wheel trims, so replacing them means you need
>> to remove the wheels.
Yes, Panda trims are bolted on with the wheel studs.
No, you don't need to take the wheel off as only three of the studs retain the trim. The trim stud hole in line with the valve has an oversize hole which clears the stud.
The prime reason is so you can locate the wheel with one stud before messing about with the wheel, trim, and studs when changing wheels.
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>> Remember my dad's Peugeot 505 wheeltrims were held on by the bolts.
Neither of the 505's I had bolted on wheeltrims - they looked like they were as the mock bolts in the trim were good enough to fool the average tyre fitter.
They were very expensive things..
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My Lancer has alloy wheels, not un-like the Wolfrace slot mags of yesteryear (with a bit of immagination!)
I clean them whenever I clean the car using a green washing up thingy,
Sooo relieved that the tyre fitters didn't mark them when I had the Nokians fitted last week!
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>> Someone ought to invent wheel trims that will stay on without the need for cable ties.
>>
My Ford Sierra Sapphire 1.8 had just such Ford wheel trims.
IMO they were rather good for several reasons and never any chance of them coming off.
They had a large stiffening wire so no distortion and lots of grip, a large central disk surface so easy to clean plus they did NOT extend to the rim so any slight kerbing just affected the wheel ( easily sorted ) and not the disk.
Ford certainly got them right, no bolting them on just a hard shove.
Being a low spec car I cannot find any pics to date.
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I don't think I've ever had a car with 'proper' wheel trims. The first couple of cars (both Unos) had silver painted wheels with a plastic centre cap type thing - didn't cover the whole wheel. They were followed by a few warm/hot hatches from the late '80's early '90s, all with alloys, before the world of alloy clad company cars...
At least, I think they all had alloys. The only one I'm not 100% sure of is the first, a 'K' reg Excort LX (hateful car with a 1.4 engine!!). It had a spoiler though, so it must have had alloys ;-) By the time I started buying my own cars again (within the last 5~6 years) alloys were pretty much unavoidable...
As an aside, and as a counter to Vauxhalls rather neat solution, IIRC my dad once had a Volvo estate (740 style) that had alloys that looked exactly like hubcaps!!
Peter
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>> Someone ought to invent wheel trims that will stay on without the need for cable ties
>> My Ford Sierra Sapphire 1.8 had just such Ford wheel trims
My Octavia Classic's wheeltrims were never cable-tied on and the front ones got kerbed to death over 300k miles. They were easy to take off and put back when needed, but never once fell off on their own. I sold it with all four originals still in place. Beats me how many B4 shape Octys you see with shiny replacement trims, what do the drivers to them??
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Tue 27 Sep 11 at 15:23
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I'm thinking I'm too old for this. There are people saying they have never had a car with wheel trims.
Well, my first five or six cars had shiny hubcaps - they were very easy to keep clean.
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>> I'm thinking I'm too old for this. There are people saying they have never had
>> a car with wheel trims.
Vauxhall Astra Mk1 had plastic hub cap things, the rest of the wheel was painted silver
Cavalier Mk3 plastic wheel trims
Renault Laguna plastic wheel trims
Vauxhall Astra Mk4 - plastic wheel trims
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>> I'm thinking I'm too old for this. There are people saying they have never had a car with wheel trims
I've only had three cars (out of more than 30) with alloys: '81 XR3, '03 406 estate, and '97 Escort Ghia X.
The rest have had shiny hubcaps (Allegro, assorted Minis), plastic trims (Panda, Strada, Bluebird, Mk3 Cavalier, Sierras, Skoda, Mondeos) or nothing at all (Cortina, Mk2 Cavalier, Mk3 Escort, Metro). I've had more cars with plastic trims than anything else.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Tue 27 Sep 11 at 17:51
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The only 2 cars of mine that didn't have alloys were my Allegro (chrome hubcaps) and my Mk1 Astra (gold painted wheels with plastic hubcaps)
The rest of my cars have had alloys.
Cavalier Mk2 GLS, Cavalier Mk2 CD, Cavalier Mk3 CD, Cavalier Mk3 Diplomat, Vectra-B CD, Vectra-C Elegance, & Vectra-C Elite.
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Citroens of the 60s/70s did the best trims on DS, GS and CX. A CX Pallas the very best with an almost smooth chrome disc covering the whole wheel... so easy to keep clean.
www.delest.nl/cb-img/172/Citroen-CX-2400-Pallas-ie-C-matic-1978.jpg
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That CX is beautiful. Can't imagine wanting a Granada or an Audi 100 from the same period but there's something fantastically, elegantly French about that. I glimpsed one last month near the Oval and it made my jaw drop even 80 metres away.
Weren't wheel trims introduced as aerodynamic aids, the flatter the better? There was a time in the 80s when the drag coefficient was essential data at a new car's launch, much as the CO2 value is today. After that they got steadily less flat and more ornate, and nobody commented, so perhaps they didn't offer much aerodynamic benefit in the first place.
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Yes that one looks very good in blue. My last one in the 80s was the same model with the same blue interior but silver paint. Remarkable car.
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>> Cavalier Mk2 GLS, Cavalier Mk2 CD, Cavalier Mk3 CD, Cavalier Mk3 Diplomat, Vectra-B CD,
This is sad, but I can visualise the exact designs of each of the Cavalier alloys! Comes from growing up near Luton, I spose :(
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>> I'm thinking I'm too old for this. There are people saying they have never had
>> a car with wheel trims.
>> Well, my first five or six cars had shiny hubcaps - they were very easy
>> to keep clean.
I'm very happy my 06 Zafira has plastic wheel trims - easy to keep clean and much less pain to replace off ebay with a new one if you kerb them. Unlike the alloys on my wife's car which even the local tyre fitters seem intent on ruining!
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>>Unlike the alloys on my wife's car which even the local tyre fitters seem intent on ruining!
You could try Just Tyres next time. They don't use an air wrench, or they didn't the last time they fitted tyres for me.
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>> They don't use an air wrench, or they didn't the last time they fitted tyres for me.
I find most of the damage is caused by the tyre levers, valve removal tool, and the clamps on the tyre fitting machines.
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Both my cars have steels with trims - Xsara Pic at 85k and Xantia at 120k. All 8 original still present; no cable ties in sight. Whether or not the car has alloys comes somewhere down the pecking order below what colour it is - and neither of those have much bearing on my buying a car! Although a distressing number of the ex-motability C4 Grand Picassos I might buy next are that awful metallic gold colour.... with alloys probably!
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Although a distressing number of the ex-motability C4 Grand Picassos I might buy next are that awful metallic gold colour.... with alloys probably!
i really like the gold colour on those c4 picasso's. when i bought mine they had a longer lead time for the gold so i had to order a different colour.
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Since 1989 I've had four cars with steels/trims (2xBX, Xantia and a 205).
Lost one from sixteen. That was in the 205, my fault for not pushing it fully home after a clean.
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>> I find most of the damage is caused by the tyre levers, valve removal tool,
>> and the clamps on the tyre fitting machines.
My point exactly - paint removed in nice concentric circles and on the wheel lip plus in places gouged chunks. No point in complaining as it just adds to the damage the wife has already inflicted whilst kerbing them!
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Bring back wheel trims!! - Iffy
