Looking good Derek :bglasses: Coker took good care of us, glad you got what you were looking for :TU: D.
Just talked with Summit Racing. They have my five 15X7 wheels and are shipping them today. YEAAAH! This is good news for all of us, it means the manufacturing pipeline has re-opened.
Dana,Beth I just got my wheels from Coker and 3 look to have rub or scrape marks on the chrome. Did you or anyone else have that problem? They are going to send me 3 replacements and I told them to have someone personally check them out before sending! :af:
My center caps arrived today and my 15x7's should be here Tuesday also. My 15x8's are still on back order though. Now the expected ship date is May 20. I ordered everything from Summit Racing. The center caps look very nice, I can't wait to see the wheels. They are going on my '70 GS 455 conv.. Ken
They're here! And these five 15X7 Buick rallye wheels in Wheel Vintiques boxes ordered through Summit Racing look terrific! A happy ending to a long and scary story. Get yours now - you never know when the supply may dry up again...or permanently.
3 out of my 4 wheels are great. One should not have passed quality control. Returning it and the wheels are on backorder again. Don't know when I will have a full set. Summit is very apologetic and it is circumstances beyond their control.
?????????? what about 14x7" wheels. That's the size we got from Wheel Vintiques through Year One. We recived them in December and we are going to have them re-balanced now that we are gettinng a terrible vibration at 70 mph and above. That and the vibratio comes and goes between 50-70. The sad thing about it is that I should have known by looking at all of the weight that they used on the wheel that is causing the vibration! :rant: We are going to a GM dealer tomorow to get them all re-balanced on a force balancer. I hope that we won't need to get another wheel! If so should I order one through YR1, Summit, or Coker?????? o No: I guess I'll be better off checking who has the shortest expected backorder time. If I do get another I guess that I will have to use the bad one for a spare. What do you guys think??? :laugh: :laugh: This wheel thing is making me more frustrated than an Amish electrican!!! :laugh: Thad Seybert
Thad... re read my previous posts on you balancing problem. Dont waste your money on "force" type balancers. -tell them to balance them thru the lug nut holes. These wheels are lug centric, not hub centric. -Get them "match mounted" -tell them to use clip on style weights Pretty simple stuff. Should cost you no more than 8-10 bucks a piece if they don't match monut them. Add another 5 bucks each to break the beads and match mount them. Take my advice.
I took my five new Wheel Vintiques wheels to a Firestone store today to get some Indy 500 tires. When I asked them about the lug-centric balancing they didn't know what I was talking about. One guy had 17 years there, another had over 20. Finally, one of them produced a rusted device which he said had been used in the 1970's to lug-center wheels. It was long since broken. He said that all modern cars were hub-centric. I called Wheel Vintiques, and they said I had to find a shop that had a lug-centric adapter. This is another "gotcha" we all need to be aware of.
ALL, do NOT give up hope yet.... I have at one time (starting last November and ending this February) or another called ALL of the companies mentioned above (Specialty wheel, Stockton Wheel, Coker, Wheel Vintiques & TA Products) and either was told they didnt produce the wheels or I didnt care for the wait time &/or price. I have been given significant runaround and been told different stories from the same companies depending on who I get ahold of. I wish I had written it down now because I dont recall who told me what, but it was quite frustrating. The list below is what I put together the day I called and ordered mine from Stockton in order to compare prices for myself. I could have swore Specialty carried them, but I think someone answering phones told me otherwise and I didnt have time to fool with it. Coker Tire- $207 for each custom BS'ed wheel and it will be 12 weeks. Wheel Vintiques 4-5 month wait for backorder. Specialty Wheel Does not appear to carry Buick wheels. They are in Chattanooga and are probably affiliated with Coker. Stockton Wheel TA Products $541.90. I finally ended up paying $500 for two wheels with the 5 & 5/8's" backspacing so I could run the 325 drag radials like 70GSConvt (thanks btw for the info/guidance!!). I didnt care for the 4-5 week wait, but it sounded MUCH better than the other options above. I was told two things that made it feel ALOT better. A) Their supply of centers were drying up FAST and future orders were looking at much longer waits and B) the guy was so sure that he was low on centers that he asked if I wasnted 2 or 4 on my order and after checking thought I got the VERY LAST ONES. This has been somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 weeks ago, maybe longer. The cars not ready and with a new job the $$ for finishing and new tires is slow so its no biggie, but Im sure I will feel your pain if I find out my current rallye wheels dont clean up well enough to go up front and need to order two more. I last called around the turn of the month and was told i should have gotten them by the end of THIS week.... Ill drop them a call Monday, I guess. I think the wheels are out there, but the supply is limited and idiots are manning the phones..... <grin>
re about that lug centric deal, we had just about the same deal when we got ours mounted at SEARS. The guy doing the job was ignorant to the stickers on the wheels stating " These wheels LUG CENTRIC " and balanced them off of the hub. That and we couldnt find an adapter to balance them off of the wheels in the hole shop. I ended up finding a universal hub and fingers and got the right bolt pattern set-up. Even after that the guy still didn't balance them off of the lugs. :af: Talk about Ignorance!!!!! :rant: I'm 15 and I know more about some things that were before my time than people older than me!!!!!!!!! That really puts me in a foul state!! Ps: BUICK64203: Thank you very much for your advise. The place that were going has both standard and FORCE balancers. We may/most likely will only have them check the one that I know is making the vibration on the FORCE balancer, the others on the standard. I'm thinking that the wheel is terribly off or the tire is out of round. I just want to make sure. Thanks Thad Seybert
Jason, What does "match mounted" mean? All, I got 4 15x7 wheels from Coker. 3 of the 4 wheels I was not totally satisfied with and told them to send 3 others to be checked by someone to be perfect before shipping them to me. Like that happened! 2 of those 3 looked to have some rust pits in the chrome and 1 had chrome chipping along the edge. :af: Anyway I recleaned 2 of the first 4 and got them to look satisfactory and am sending 3 of the others back. It is amazing what they will try to sell you. :spank: It makes me almost want to forget them. I am sure they will try to sell them to someone else. I wouldn't want to offer these to anyone.
Carl....Match mounting is a procedure where you orient the heavy spot of the tire with the light spot of the wheel. All new car manufacturers do this. Next time your on a new car lot, notice the wheels and tires. Youll see green stickers on the wheels and tires that line up. If the wheels and tires are not mounted yet, you spin the bare wheel on a balancer and record where the heavy spot of the wheel is with a magic marker. All new tires have a dot on them where the heavy spot is. Mount the wheel and tire so that the heavy spots are opposite each other. This way the wheel and tire take the least amount of clip on weights. On already mounted wheels and tires where the dot on the tire has been removed, take an initial spin and record the weight amounts and location, then deflate the tire and break the beads but not dismount. Depending on where the balancer calls for the weight, rotate the wheel inside the tire to offset the inbalance. The bottom line is that your trying to "phase" the wheel and tire. Balancing tires thru the lug nut holes is the most accurate way of balancing. All hub centric wheels are also lug centric, but not all lug centric wheels are hub centric. Most high end wheel and tire shops can do this
Carl, My five Wheel Vintiques wheels ordered through Summit Racing appear to be perfect. But, then again, I'm now waiting a couple of days for the tires to arrive, so there's been no attempt to balance those wheels yet. Hope I don't have a balance/vibration issue like Thad does, but I'll learn that soon enough.
Jason, Thanks for the information! Have to find a shop willing to do balancing that way when I get my tires. Do they also balance the wheel/ tire on both sides of the rim?
The most accurate is using weights on both sides. You can balance them with the weights on just the inside.
Just as an FYI, I called Jegs this evening and was told that a shipment of 15x7 Buick rallyes just came in today from Wheel Vintiques. They said my oder (from Jan 3rd mind you) will be shipping out on Monday....woo hoo!!! I was so happy. I think the girl on the phone thought I was wierd.
