Quote:
Originally Posted by Timmy_Jones
This is a completely serious question, as I haven't been on these forums very long, but are Rota wheels that bad? I am absolutely not trying to start a war here, maybe some links to different threads/sites where the wheels failed?
I actually like the design of some of their wheels and would like to steer clear if they're that bad.
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To put it very simply, Rota uses other manufacturer's designs but not the manufacturing processes.
Example: The popular Rays Volk CE28 - a forged, lightweight racing wheel. Rays has a significant investment on the design, development and materials used on the
machinery used to manufacture this wheel, which itself is a product of countless hours of design, development and testing. To put it simply, the
unique materials used (which is similar to 6061 aluminum, however optimized for the specific use as an automotive wheel) is specifically formulated to take advantage of the
unique manufacturing process (which involves 10,000
tons of force, while spinning the material) by design.
For the sake of consistency let's keep the ideas of "right and wrong, and intellectual property" out of this discussion and concentrate on performance.
Rota offers a popular wheel that looks very similar to, if not virtually identical to the Volk CE28, however this wheel is manufactured by a gravity casting method (essentially pouring melted aluminum into a mold and waiting for it to cool to room temperature) using an unknown and poorly regulated grade of aluminum. Expecting a wheel specifically designed to be made of a specific grade of aluminum using a specific manufacturing method to function when made of inferior materials using inferior manufacturing methods is simply illogical. I strongly believe this is not simply a matter of branding, you are not simply paying for a name.