S3 Magazine Real vs Fake Wheel article

[SLICVIC]

i havent even seen these cars on the road yet and theirs already a "fake wheels vs real wheels" thread haha. i never understood how people with "real" wheels are effected by other people purchasing rotas and xxrs?

[jadewbj]

Originally Posted by SLICVIC

i havent even seen these cars on the road yet and theirs already a "fake wheels vs real wheels" thread haha. i never understood how people with "real" wheels are effected by other people purchasing rotas and xxrs?

When someone looks at your car and goes...."Nice wheels, are they rota"? Or...."those are cool looking rims, the look like the Rota X". j/k

It's not really the owners who are hurt, more like we have respect for the manufacturer who bother to make their own designs.

[seven]

Originally Posted by SLICVIC

i havent even seen these cars on the road yet and theirs already a "fake wheels vs real wheels" thread haha. i never understood how people with "real" wheels are effected by other people purchasing rotas and xxrs?

When you spend that type of money, usually you've got something to say about it.

[2point0]

Originally Posted by diirk

But walk into any parking lot and count how many cars are sporting a 5-spoke wheel. How many of those are similar in design to other 5-spoke wheels? I think some folks are getting a little hot under the collar about something fairly minor.

So, funny thing...

When I had my WRX, I painted some LGT 5-spokes and threw those on. Later on, I picked up a set of 5Zigen FN01R-Cs in black. I swapped them out and told my roommate to come out and look. His response..."looks like the old ones but black."

Now, those wheels have nothing in common except diameter, bolt pattern and # of spokes. Just shows that the common Joe has no clue one way or the other.


Someone mentioned keeping OEM until you can afford something high-quality. I'm all about saving for something nice (Volks look so...refined next to knock-offs), but it's too bad Toyobaru decided to put the ugliest wheels known to man on the car...and make them far heavier than necessary for their tiny size. I can't blame people for putting something cheap and nice-looking on right away.

[Josh B]

I'm a big fan of quality forged wheels. Have nothing against more budget cast wheels, they just aren't for me personally.

[JDMenrique]

The "buys a FR-S/BRZ, puts fakes wheels" excuse is pretty invalid. For some of us, buying this car requires a little bit of a stretch. Some of us have worked hard to get to the point where we can sit down and just be happy we can afford these cars. Who wouldn't love to slap on a pair of Volks? Reality is that some have other pressing issues than saving $4k in a year for wheels, especially in this economy.

[Rampage]

To me this is like the kid that goes to the mall and pays $150 for a pair of Nike and then is pissed because a poor kid went to Walmart and bought an almost identical pair of shoes for $40.

If you want to spend lots of $$$ for a "name" brand then go for it. I will investigate the product specifications and then buy the lowest cost product that fulfills my needs every time. Much of what you are paying for is the advertising dollars to hype the product anyway, not the development cost.

[Turbowned]

Happens with wheels, happens with everything:





They're stealing someone else's design. That's what's wrong with it. If they took the time to make their own wheel styles, I wouldn't give two $#!ts what they charged for them or who bought them to put on what car. It's stealing. Period. And you're a fake for buying that shit.

And yes, I made the mistake of buying XXR's, too, so flame away. I can't seem to find any other wheel they directly copy, but either way I want them off my car ASAP.

[raz0rbladez909]

Originally Posted by Rampage

To me this is like the kid that goes to the mall and pays $150 for a pair of Nike and then is pissed because a poor kid went to Walmart and bought an almost identical pair of shoes for $40.

If you want to spend lots of $$$ for a "name" brand then go for it. I will investigate the product specifications and then buy the lowest cost product that fulfills my needs every time. Much of what you are paying for is the advertising dollars to hype the product anyway, not the development cost.

The funny thing is like the shoe comparison, most discerning individuals can tell the difference between the real deal and a fake. In fact, most of the differences in knockoff shoes are quite obvious and kids are much more harsh about blatantly calling out one another on copycat shoes lol. Honestly there are plenty of good looking wheels that aren't knock offs of another wheel. Yeah there may only be so many ways to make a wheel look different or have so many different ways for a certain amount of spokes to come out but some of this is just blatant copying. 5Zigen, Buddy Club, Enkei, Team Dynamics, and several others fit in to the easily affordable category and most of them have been producing wheels for quite some time. If a company is selling wheels for less than half of what a reputable company is selling for I'd definitely think that they are cutting corners somewhere. I can't stand copying because it isn't innovative, they aren't bringing anything new to the community. All they are doing is taking someone elses designs/ideas and cutting the cost to make a profit. They don't help the community in that regard, and it's sad because these manufacturers actually have the ability to create something of their own but they are unwilling to do so.

[SLICVIC]

Originally Posted by seven

When you spend that type of money, usually you've got something to say about it.

Originally Posted by jadewbj

When someone looks at your car and goes...."Nice wheels, are they rota"? Or...."those are cool looking rims, the look like the Rota X". j/k

It's not really the owners who are hurt, more like we have respect for the manufacturer who bother to make their own designs.

regardless of what other people think which brand youre rocking , or if other people confuse your wheels for a different inexpensive brand, it seems like some people just buy these wheels cause of the pricetag. it should be for the performance, right? its like the guys at the shows all pissed - " i spend OMG$$$ on my wheels and this guy with cheap wheels won an award " it all just sounds VERY materialistic to me , but thats just my opinion. god forbid someone doesnt realize you spend lots of money on wheels.

If it was all for the performance like everyone claims, why be upset that other people use wheels that yours will out-perform?...... i mean, isnt that a good thing being that they are the competition?

[hippari]

Good read peeps should check out that addresses the whole budget wheel/baller wheel thing. (I apologize if it was posted already in this thread and I overlooked it.)

http://custompinoyrides.com/2012/03/...f-rota-wheels/

Personally, my sentiments are similar to Slicvic's. Wheels are like Gucci handbags to some people. More emphasis into the brand of the wheel than what it looks like because they want to get props for parking their honda on Work Meisters instead of Konig Candys. (fun fact, in that sentence you can substitute Meisters for SSR Professors and Candys for Rota D2s)

[JDMenrique]

Just cuz it's a replica doesn't make it unsafe or bad quality. My first set of wheels were high quality Enkei's which one ended up with a crack and required replacement. I've had Rota Slipstreams since then and never a problem.

[Josh B]

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

Who the hell here bought their car cash up front? Seriously, this idea that everyone who owns a BRZ got the halo model or paid cash is ridiculous. I'd be willing to bet that over 75% of the owner on this board have a car note. Being able to pay $3-400 dollars a month is NOT the same as being able to drop $4000 dollars on wheels and tires at once.

I'm planning on paying for my BRZ cash when it arrives. I recently sold off my 2 motorcycles which were fully paid for and should have enough in savings to cover the rest by early next year.

Though I am tempted to pay $16k cash, finance the other $10k through my credit union and dump $10k into mods right off the bat. STi brakes all around, BBS wheels, intake and exhaust, Sparco seats and harnesses and a cage. Mmmmmm yeah that would be nice.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

[hippari]

I can understand how CPR can be seen as biased what with Rotas being Filipino made and there being outlets in the PI like Greenhills where you can purchase a sack of Raybans for four dollars, but even Mark Arcenal in all his swagapino existence is one of the biggest detractors of Rotas and any wheel company that doesn't charge $500+ a wheel. I would say he is anti-copycats, but you can find a wheel that looks like a TE37 or LM Mesh on everyone's catalog from SSR to Enkei and last I checked you still get pogi points from Fatlace for having those.

As for the Gucci thing, I didn't intend to bring up the whole counterfeit bags issue. Faking a label is not the same as repping a design because, well, how many ways can you really do do spokes? There's a bigger difference between XXR513's and Watanabe R8's than there is between Work Meisters and SSR Professors. When Rota crosses the branding line and starts throwing red labels that say "Ray's Engineering" onto their grids, I'll join up with the mob tossing them into the grease fire, but till then I'm really meh'd out about it.

I mentioned Gucci mostly because despite having previously owned a Miata, I am not a women's handbag aficionado. Gucci for me is the household name for an unreasonably expensive fashion accessory. For people who really actually give any sort of a shit about this whole real/fake wheels thing, that's pretty much what these wheels are. No one's actually seriously racing on Work Varianzas or Rotiforms. I'd probably see more gravity cast 6ULs or RPF-1's at the track than anything else. There are also the weekend warriors out there staying alive on their Rotas and Drags no doubt, but really, these wheels are all being sold to people who are gonna park their car and want it to look fresh. And the issue at that point is the same reason threads like these start: the morality of whether those center caps on the generic looking meshes have a swoopy R or a swoopy Vs.