S3 Magazine Real vs Fake Wheel article
 

Good read! Support the innovators of the industry, not the fakers!

http://s3mag.com/blog/?p=4237

Do you buy generic prescription drugs?
Do you buy any store brand food/household goods?

I understand the concept, but no everyone can afford to drop $2000 on wheels and tires. I know LOTS and LOTS of track guys who care more about spending money on tires, suspension parts and track fees then wheels because the difference between Works and Rotas are 3 track days. Then they take their cheap wheels and beat the pants off of guys who are bringing 2K worth of wheel to the track...for what?

Sure...hardparking is all about image, so I can understand repping the real deal there. The people who buy knock off wheels aren't people who would likely have sprung for higher end wheels anyway, so I don't think much business is lost.

Rep fakes if it means more track time!

Edit: I'll note that I don't buy knock offs because I can afford not to, but I don't hate on people who do because their budget constricts them.

^^ I second that, well said.. that was the reason why i bought Rotas for my Evo when i had it, spent more time on the track and it did its job

You can't buy generic prescription drugs until the original is off patent.

If Apple owned Work, they'd claim they invented the 5x100 bolt pattern!

Cheap wheels are fine, but when a company simply buys a product that cost money to develop and runs it through a photocopier, that's not cool.

Those who think it is have obviously have never created anything in their lives ... and never will.

No, I don't buy store brand shit either. In the end that just costs more, but I don't expect the average consumer to understand that.

Generic drugs and products dont work in this sense in that the generic products typically contain the exact same ingredients as the name brand stuff. The same cannot be said about wheels. Maybe if these replica companies were able to obtain the same raw materials as well as using the exact same production methods, that might be another story. But that is not the case here.

I agree, there are some people who cannot justify spending the amount for some of the high end wheels out there. But settling for an inferior knock off product from a company that simply reverse engineers a quality product and churns out a weaker and lower quality replica is wrong and unsafe in my book. There are many wheels out there such as the Enkeis and Gramlights that are priced close to alot of these knock off brands, they might not look identical to the TE37 you want, but atleast you can rest assured you are getting the most for your money from an original product. as unethical as it is, unfortunately this is an issue that will always remain. I just posted this to educate some of the new guys to the scene incase they were to buy a replica wheel thinking it was a real :)

One of the funniest things happened while at the last Blox Racing show up in Norcal a couple months ago. I was at the Mackin Industries booth and this guy standing next to me pointed at a TE37 Superlap and said "hey, that looks alot like that one varrstoen wheel" LMAO :bonk:

Store brand food/household goods are usually manufactured in the same plants as the brand names.

I'm much more qualified to answer about drugs though...For a good majority of drugs the generics are just as good as the brand name. Hell the generic for Protonix is not only made in the same company as Protonix but it even says Protonix on it. But as previously mentioned, no generic drugs do not usually have the same exact ingredients as the brand name.


Wheels! Knockoff wheels are not made with anywhere near the quality of the real thing. And with a lack of quality comes a bonus of weight. Look at how popular TE37's became because of their low weight. Rota makes a knockoff and they sell like hot cakes for usually the purpose of looking good and they do the job just fine. Don't expect them to perform the same way though.

Thing is, even if they are equally good performance wise, there are people here that like to support good manufacturers that spend the R&D money and time to bring us good things even when they know some chinese company will rip them off in the near future.

Growing up my mother always told me there's some things you just don't cheap out on because in the end you'll end up paying more when you try to save a buck. Wheels are a good example of one of these things. Probably not what she meant though. If you're budget doesn't allow for the real thing, just save the money altogether. Not knocking anyone here, I can't justify plopping down $4k for some BBS LM's, that doesn't mean I should spend $800 on knock offs.

If you're really a hard racing, rather than hard parking wheel purchaser, why do you need your cheap wheels to look like CE28Ns?

From my experience is to never go cheap on tires & wheels reason being is because they're the first contact patch to touch the ground. Tires go, you're FUCKED, wheels fracture/break/come off you're fucked.

I'm usually not worried about the brand per se but the quality of the wheel that is cast/forged especially if they are gonna be used for hardcore track days. IMO, wheels that cost more usually equates to a better product, better build, and better quality control. Not all the time but most of the time.

I follow this philosophy in all of life, so i'll be going with the name brand. They will not however, be a bright white set of Volks.

fuck that! spending $2k on wheels is stupid.
I'll take some sweet Rota knock-offs for a 3rd of the price ANY DAY!
I've had them for ever and they can take all the abuse.

Innovation of what? the wheel?!! :laughabove:

So why do they need to look EXACTLY like a stupid $2k set of wheels?

I would love to be able to spend $3k on some SSR, Volk, etc but things happen and f one of them got scratched or damaged I would lose it. I have Rota DPT's now and some XXR's on the way and as long as they are safe for daily driving i don't have a problem with it. If all i wanted on the car were wheels i would have gotten something nicer but there are lots of other things i want to spend my money on too.

if were speaking about looks, what if someone likes TE37s or CR kais, but like the rotas better because they are more concave?

would you consider rotiform "fakes" ?

how about SSR Professor SP1s vs. Work Meisters?

not trying to prove any points just curious

To follow on with that, I'd like to know which wheels/mfgs are considered "real" and which are considered "fake".

Is there a list somewhere? Considering how sensitive folks get on this subject, I'm assuming there's a breakdown somewhere.

Just for info: I've had Rota's, Enkie's, TSW's, and a bunch of others that are offroad related.