Ebay wheels?
 

This may have already been discussed in an earlier forum, but I was just curious if there is any harm in purchasing new wheels off of ebay? I guess I'm just hesitant in buying wheels that are listed as buy it now for so cheap, does this mean the wheels are just cheap wheels? I do not want to buy wheels that won't last, yet I do not want to spend thousands of dollars. Here's a couple of examples of what I'm talking about.
18" Rota Wheels 18x9.5 Torque GM G35 370z G37 Genesis: eBay Motors (item 270591649057 end time Jul-09-10 21:41:25 PDT)

18 XXR 522 Concave Black Wheels Staggered G37 370z 350z: eBay Motors (item 220628101452 end time Jul-05-10 22:41:11 PDT)

20 XXR 521 BLACK RIMS WHEELS 350Z 370Z G35 G37 G37S: eBay Motors (item 300431411094 end time Jul-25-10 11:10:06 PDT)

Are Rota, Tenzo, XXR, any good? I'm simply trying to find a decent, quality set of black wheels that look good for my Z around the thousand dollar range. I know it's probably impossible, but it would be great to find some 19's or 20's with a tire package for $1500 or less. Does anyone know any good websites or have any advice for me about these wheels, or does anyone have anything like this I may be interested in?

I have bought a couple sets of wheels off ebay and no problems so far. If the seller is honest and has a good feedback, and they pack them well, all should be good. Of course they could get damaged or lost in transit, which is not ebay or the sellers fault. And with the mandatory paying with Paypal, you should be covered. Just make sure and use your Credit card for added protection with Paypal.

The XXR 521 looks really good on the 370z. I've bought XXR wheels before for my other car. Many people look down upon other brand of rims if they are not BBS, Rays, or some other expensive rims. If you daily drive your car, I'd say get cheap rims and if you curb them or messed them up, you can replace them cheap and quick. If you got a garage queen, then get those baller rims. Remember that if you bought rims from Japan, and you need a replacement, you'd have a pretty long wait before you see delivery to your door step.

My Z is a daily driver, so you're right I guess it would make more sense to buy cheaper rims. I would be a nervous wreck driving around with rims I put thousands of dollars into. Any suggestions on getting black rims with a polished lip or without? I drive a Monterey Blue Z so I'm not sure, I'm a very indecisive person.

Make sure you know what offsets these eBay wheels have. I think you could get a better deal with forum sponsors.

To be honest, I've never bought aftermarket wheels for any car I've owned so I'm new to this, and have no idea what offset to get, or even do I know what the differences are?

You should buy from the forums then. Spending on rims only to have ugly offsets would suck. Offsets determine how flush the rim is to the fenders are.

You should spend some time on the forum, go to meets, and visit some reputable wheel shops in your area before buying anything.

Would I even be able to find a set in my price range? Because most of the sponsors sell the name brand Volk's, Work's, and so on, which are thousands of dollars. I'm looking for a good set for around $1000 or around $1500 with tires. Maybe I'm being unrealistic.

If you have the sport package wheels, just keep those on. They are some of the nicest stock rims that you can get. Plus they are light for 19 inch rims.

I just have the 18" stock rims.

bump to the top. If you had $1200 to spend on black wheels, which ones would they be? (I know this may not be a lot of $$$, but I'm not looking for Volk's or Works, etc.)

XXR is okay.

I think I'm going to go with the XXR 521 20" ones. Would I have any problems jumping from 18" wheels to 20's?

nope, it's fine. Just pick the right tire sizes and it should be good to go!

Tons of people go from 18's to 20's.

Ok great thanks alot!

rota are crap. don't get them

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_NRSDCBt4i-U/Sb...a%20wheels.jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/24dmy5c.jpg

^^^people always use pictures like that to scare others not to buy rotas...it's funny how they don't realize that any rim that went through what happened to those rims will break just as bad. Maybe I should post a picture of my Enkeis that I ran over a large pothole and bent it real bad and say the same thing about expensive rims.

Awww, you beat me to it Jeff... was looking forward to posting up some knarly pics like that.

Consider the value of your car before cheaping out on the only thing that touches the ground. If your wheels break, your chances are a lot of other things will follow.

And just a tip about eBay; it's heavily polluted by cheap quality products. Be wary about buying goods from eBay; even name brand. There are tons of "name brand" goods that seem to be priced so well, but they turn out to be knock-offs. If it seems like it's too good to be true, it most likely is.

Just a few examples:
Tomei Powered WARNING!: Chinese Made Copies of Tomei Fuel Pressure Regulators
HKS USA Counterfeit Identification Center

Even Rotas are knock-offs. Those wheels were copied off of these:
CRkai [???????] ?????????WORK?

In the end, it's just not worth going with cheap quality or replicas just to save few bucks...

-Mike

Theres a difference between bending and shredding. That wouldn't happen to a high quality forged wheel. plus, Enke's aren't really considered expensive wheels. They are good, solid wheels, but no where near the expensive zone. You can get a set of enkei's for the price of like 1 BBS.

True, you don't need to spend 4k on a set of wheels, but for 150/200 for a new wheel, its gonna be cast, and its gonna be crap.

i'm sure these pictures are the result of these wheels being pushed very hard, probably on a track or something, where they never belonged. however, i'm not going to trust anything that would SHRED EVER, under ANY circumstances. If a truck goes to merge into me, and i need to floor it, or swerve out of the way or do some sudden move, i dont want to have to worry about my wheel shredding.

the wheels that come on our cars are good. if you can't afford to replace them with something of equal or better quality then don't. Don't downgrade safety and performance for looks.

I love how our Z's come with high quality Rays rims, so I wouldn't have to opt for something else. But remember, that if you hit it hard enough, it will bend, crack, break, etc no matter if you spent $100 per rim or $5000 per rim, and you'd have to replace it with just as much money as you spent on it.

Sooo does all of this mean that I should not go with the XXR 521 wheels? I could never imagine anything happening to the wheels considering I never track or drive my car past it limits. I can get the 20" XXR 521's shipped to my door for $730. Not much money for wheels at all, but does that make them a bad wheel? I love the look of them and know a lot of Z owners have bought them for theirs, so what is the honest opinion?

I would recommend that you at least save some more money and buy a set of Enkei's RP1's over the XXR's. XXR's are very popular in the 240 and Honda community because they are a very cheap wheel but I wouldn't put them on a 370Z.

A set of -4- Enkei RPF1's can be had on the used market for around $1,000 if you search carefully.

http://www.tirerack.com/images/wheel...f1_s_ci3_l.jpg

I still think you should try to see the wheels in person at some local meets and also do some additional research, it will save you money in the long run.

I say go for the xxr 521 rims. They look good and are cheap to replace. It's not like you are gonna go straight into the curb at 45mph. You'd have more to worry about than your rims when that happens.

And if that happens you'd be grateful you did not have your $5000 rims on your car.

Just keep your 18'' and paint them black man. Stock 370z 18'' are made by Enkei.
I was in the same situation as you are now when I first got the Z. I immediately started looking for rims.
Save yourself that $1500.
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1277985252
That cost me $125
That will leave you with $1375 to spend on a nice CBE or Intake + HFC

I don't see how you dont rub with 9.5 and 20mm offset in front. I am running 35mm offset and I am scared to death that it will rub since the rim sticks out about .5" past the fender

Those stock rims look great painted black. That's what I was going back and forth with, buying new rims or painting my stock ones. The only thing I don't like about painting them is I wouldn't have the choice of going back to stock (unless I wanted to paint them back) which could be a hassle because it may not turn out perfect like original. But, painting is the cheapest and easiest way to go so that's what I'll probably end up doing.

I am in no way a fan of cheap wheels, BUT I will not start digging up the wheels that I have seen from Volk breaking similar to that. I do agree you should spend more money, but to crack on Rota for instance is not cool.

Wheels are designed to take a certain amount of abuse, but to be very honest I have seen factory wheels shred so its just the situation the wheel is put into, the amount of tire protecting the wheel, the way the wheel was installed, was it balanced correctly? Lots of things contribute to wheels breaking and falling apart, so it does stink that companies get bad reps, b/c the customer did something stupid and decided it wasnt his fault.

I think the ripping on Rota's is more about the fact that all that company does is produce knock off replicas of other companies wheels.. if thats ok with you then fine.. but imagine you spend months developing something that no other company makes, you release it to the world and then ******* comes along and copies your design and makes it out of cheaper materials.. How would you feel about that?

long story short, save up a little more money and buy legit wheels..

there are only so many permutations of wheel designs. and i imagine that its hard to trademark a wheel design, especially the more generic designs. it seems like each company will just interpret what a mesh wheel will look like, or how they think a 5 spoke wheel with a lip should look like. i'm not saying you gotta go spend 5 grand on wheels. i'm just saying your wheels should probably cost more than your tires if you want something of decent quality.

I have personally seen rota wheels crack! Sucks, but people still buy them because they are cheap!.

For an economically awesome wheel, I would also suggest the RPF1 by Enkei. And that isn't just because we carry them.

If I could find a set of Forgestar F14's in piano black for a good price, those would be the ones I would get because I'm pretty set on them. I don't think I've ever seen a better looking wheel on a 370z IMO.

If you're going to settle for something just paint the stockers or don't do anything until you can get what you really want.

There is no rush man, it's not a contest.

rotas arent bad for the price imo..or u could save some cash and then lowball someone on the for sale thread..hahah..damn lowballers!!

or buy the wheels that are stolen off our cars and then resold on the forum.

http://www.the370z.com/parts-sale-pr...els-tires.html

Haha I saw that. And IMO I wouldn't be just settling for the Forgestar's, like I said I really think they look great on the Z. I know a brand like Volk is an amazingly made wheel, but it just looks like any normal 5-spoke wheel. You pay for the name. There are a lot of wheels out there with just as good of quality and look better IMO that do not cost thousands.

rims are never cheap. expecially two pieces for forged

its kind of like a mcdonalds burger vs a NY Strip Steak. They are both beef, just in a different form.

the issue with replicas isn't that they don't look good. They look great. its the quality of the construction of the wheel.

check this out:

Wheel Tech Guide - Tech - Sport Compact Car Magazine

:iagree: