sources for 19' wheels
1 - 16 of 16 Posts
Joined
·
339 Posts
OE wheels, purchased new, can only come from an authoirzed Maserati dealer. If you are getting offers to buy somewhere else, there are a couple of possibilities of how they got the wheel to sell you
1. Purchased from dealer at wholesale and marked up and passed along to you (maybe still less than what you'd pay at dealer direct)
2. Purchased used from new/used car because a different set was put on
3. Knock-offs (in automotive industry as a whole, the most common reason).
Since I work for the OE manuf. of Maserati wheels, I know how strict the resale of these wheels are. No one outside of Maserati themselves gets these wheels. As a direct employee, I can't even get the wheels for our demo car, we have to go through Maserati NA. It's the same deal with BMW, Audi, Ferrari, MB, VW, Porsche, etc, etc.
If you buy a wheel outside of a dealer, it should have "BBS" and a part # stamped on the back, inside of the spoke or mounting face. Feel free to PM me the part # and I'll confirm it as an accurate # or not.
1. Purchased from dealer at wholesale and marked up and passed along to you (maybe still less than what you'd pay at dealer direct)
2. Purchased used from new/used car because a different set was put on
3. Knock-offs (in automotive industry as a whole, the most common reason).
Since I work for the OE manuf. of Maserati wheels, I know how strict the resale of these wheels are. No one outside of Maserati themselves gets these wheels. As a direct employee, I can't even get the wheels for our demo car, we have to go through Maserati NA. It's the same deal with BMW, Audi, Ferrari, MB, VW, Porsche, etc, etc.
If you buy a wheel outside of a dealer, it should have "BBS" and a part # stamped on the back, inside of the spoke or mounting face. Feel free to PM me the part # and I'll confirm it as an accurate # or not.
I have a friend that just replaced his stock 19" Gransport wheels with 20" iforged. They are the ball polished and genuine BBS made for Maserati.mmmmmm68 said:
PM me if you are interested and give me your # so that I can have him contact you. I am not sure what he is asking, but I am sure they are in like new condition considering there is only 3000 miles on his car. I think he actually has a brand new set of tires with 0 miles on them that he bought for them before he got the 20's. They are not even mounted yet if you are interested.
Robb
Joined
·
339 Posts
The wheels are pressure cast, I'm not 100% sure, but I do not think they are "flow formed" like our aftrmarket wheels. (see http://www.bbs-usa.com/index.php?id=330 for explanation of process). "Die-Forging" creates the strongest possible wheel with all of the desireable properties (aligned grain structure) and paired with the patented "spinning" process (similar to flow forming in our cast products) creates an optimized weight distribution in the wheel. The LM wheel is a die-forged wheel available in Maserati fitments.Fred said:
All OE and Aftermarket BBS wheels are painted, usually multi-stage, all with a clearcoat (race wheels are a different story). You treat them like you woud the hood of your car. Anytype of "spray-on, rinse off" cleaner is going to have enough power to soften the clearcoat. Moisture can then get behind it and over time when the clearcoat rehardens, you're left with a blister which will eventually crack/peel. Use soap and water only to clean your OE wheels.
Powder coating is bad for heat treated wheels. The temperatures seen in powdercoating are sometimes greater than the heat treating process itself. You will see up to a 30% degradation in structural integrity from the process. Actually, the same goes for painting since most shops use heat or chemicals to strip and then heat to cure. Powder coating is worse because it usually takes 2-3 times to get the finished product and it's up to 30% EVERY time it's heatcycled. If you're going to have your wheels painted, have them sandblasted and let paint dry at room temperature. I do have to say though that it's not a typical painting process and the laquer is melted onto the wheels just like a powdercoating process. This step in the manuf. process is calculated into the overall heat treating process though.
Ball polishing is a process where the cast product is placed into a vat of small balls (smaller than BB's) and the whole vat is vibrated so the balls move across the surface of the product creating a smoother finish (think sandblasting without the material being moved under pressure). It's not a high mirror like shine from typical polished aluminum or chrome, it actually looks like you took a highly polished flat aluminum surface and added a slightly cloudy clear coat over it. Attractive but not too flashy like chrome wheels. The finish is more exagerated on some styles (for example the Air1 for the Cayenne with it's wide flat spokes, picture here http://www.bbs-usa.com/index.php?id=319). This is then finished off with a clearcoat like all the other wheels, despite it's look, you don't use a metal cleaner, just soap and water.
Feel free to ask any other questions. There's also a great video on the BBS site explaining some of this: http://www.bbs-usa.com/index.php?id=678
Ron
Joined
·
822 Posts
http://www.griotsgarage.com/catalog.jsp?&SKU=11106mille162 said:
If you work for BBS, please explain.
Joined
·
339 Posts
correct, that's a safe to use, non-corrosive cleaner. P21 also makes a safe to use soap cleaner. The spray on/rinse off cleaners with warnings on how long you can leave them on are corrosive and shoudn't be used. Basic soap you'd use to wash your car is best, the Griot's cleaner is an acceptable substitution that will not void your warranty or affect your finish
Joined
·
339 Posts
MVP said:
Didn't mean to imply anythong else. There's a problem in the wheel industry with Chinese knock-offs and there's more than one shop on the net claiming to buy OE wheels "out the back door" from the factory or slightly blemished wheels and then able to offer them on the net for 1/3rd the OE price. These are pure knock-offs, and are pure junk. As long as they came through the dealer network, they're original.
I know, trust me we've been in business since 1999 and never been accused of selling knock-offs. I was just clearing it up for anyone who might not know us as well and may question where we purchase our wheels from.mille162 said:
Chinese knock-offs will always be around destroying the market with low quality parts and putting the innovators out of business, nothing we can do but ignore them and try to stay in business.
If anyone needs tires for those 19" wheels from this thread I have a brand new set of Vredestein's Sessentas I am not using .
275/30-19 and 245/35-19
all four are brand new never driven on.
WHOLESALE is $800.00 on these, I will let them go for $600.00 with free shipping to the lower 48.
email me at [email protected] if interested
Robb
275/30-19 and 245/35-19
all four are brand new never driven on.
WHOLESALE is $800.00 on these, I will let them go for $600.00 with free shipping to the lower 48.
email me at [email protected] if interested
Robb
1 - 16 of 16 Posts
