This morning I noticed cracks at the base of each spoke of my 1 year old Centerline RPMs (left front wheel only). If you take a thin sheet of paper, you can work it almost half way through some of the worst cracks.

Anyone have any experience with this? Care to share?

 

I have heard that Centerline rims are a bit 'fragile'. A number of very experienced people on NAM have made such statements. This is the first time I have heard of a failure. I would post some pictures for the fact.

Are they all around the wheel? Or mostly in one spot due to an impact? Have you inspected the rest of the wheels? Definately meticuolously look at the other wheel on the same side, probably hit the same thing...

 

Only one rim - a few inches out from the hub on every single spoke. Definately stress cracks - nothing was hit.

I got them direct from Centerline. I will be calling them first thing in the morning. They are 11 months old with only 2,500 miles on them

 

humm.... do you track the car?

 

I had the Storms. Which are under the same line as the RPM's . without hitting anything major just the normal Roads around Richmond (rough). I've Bent 2 and exploded 1. When i tried to have one of the bent ones fix. The guy called back and said he couldn't due it. Simply cause he's never seen a wheel as thin as these and if he did any resurfacing it would be too dangous to put on a car.

 

Yes

 

I guess that's your root cause.

Are those Centerlines considered wheels you can use for the track, or
more like dressup wheels?

 

Centerline RPMs used to be a lighter wheel, they had failures, cracks and since made the wheel stronger and heavier ... so they told me

 

There's quite a few people Autocrossing them - I haven't seen any other at the track though.

 

Even with the storms. (Pre-production named Impulse) after the first month of release they had to do the same.. The impulse which were my first set were 11.75 lbs for the 17" then after a month in production calling them Storms they went up to 16.2 lbs for the 17" wheels. Exploded the 11.75 and bent the 16.2 lbs

 

Centerline decided not to refund me my money for the whole set. They will instead replace them with the 17x7 Excels in black pearl.

They claim that the issue with the RPMs had nothing to do with the double drilling, but was a manufacturing process error that had to due with the edge of the spokes. The also claim that no other wheels have been affected by this flaw.

Anyone care to clue me in on the Excels? Any experiences?

 

I have the 17" Polished Excels and Love them ... they are NOT my track wheels (Kosei T1 KS are), but could be

I have had them for almost a year of heavy usage, still look really nice too .... I am on their website

 

I have personally seen 3 out of 4 18" rpms bent on one car and two different customers destroy one 17 " each at the track. I WAS very interested in them when they first came out.

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

mugami and randy please tell us more about the wheels that are destroyed. do you mean all the spokes broke off? maybe we can get a list together of wheels that should not be tracked. i just ruined a set of track tires after getting my BBK. i'm hoping my wheels aren't the weak link. that would be a bad bad thing to have a wheel come apart at speed.

thanks

p.s. randy any thought on what's wrong with my pulley? check out my problem a few post back.

 

Cracked RPM's
Wheels not tracked

 

Exactly what mine did.

I'm still wondering if this is an RPM related issue or affects their other wheels.

I'm switching to Rotas - however some of my Subie friends have clued me into cracking on these rims also.

 

that is scary.

 

EGAD.

Not good.

 

The one set that I saw in person which were tracked looked exactly like that as well. The center hub almost broke out of the wheel. Luckily he noticed it as he was rolling back into the paddock as it could have been a disaster on the track. The other broken wheel was just something I heard about when they called into the shop to order a different set, I did not see that one in person.
The 18 inch saga is a different story but still telling on the part of Centerline. I feel the root cause of the problem was the thin 35 sidewall that the owner had to run to get them to fit. There is not a lot of cushion there to absorb road bumps and if the wheel is not up to it you are going to bend them. When i first me t him at a Steve's Auto Clinic party he told me how he had bent two rims so far and neither time did he even realize what bump had done it. The bends were not too bad and he was able to live with the vibration and he would take care of it when he got back home to TX. Two weeks later i get a PM from him with this saga. On the way home be bent two more wheels so bad they would not hold air. He had to hold up in a hotel for a day while his mother overnighted his stock S lites so he could make it the rest of the way home. Here is the kicker . After contacting Centerline about their warranty position and seeing if he could get a replacement for the bent wheels he was told that his warranty was voided because he bent the wheels ???? I swear this is the story as he relayed it to me.
Now I have no ax to grind with Centerline. I had met up with their representatives at the IAS show a couple of years ago regarding a sponsorship for my car. They were trying to get into the import market and bemoaning the fact that they had no presence there at all. We struck a deal but something better for me came along and I did not sign up. With the stories we are hearing here they really need to get their act together . The company is a well known large corporation. Hell I used to run Centerlines on my street car in the late 60's. I have no idea how they could be that far off the mark quality wise. Anyway end of story for now.

Randy
M7 Tuning

P.S I have not seen the thread regarding your pulley problem. If it is ours please call ASAP either of the numbers on our site and lets get it fixed.

 

wow, that is pretty scary.

 

the Impulse / Storm (same rim) are in the same line of wheels the RPM's are in. <I think it was call the Monsoon or close to that> the 5 spoke storm that i say exploded. broke off 2 of the 5 spokes and split the wheel in half.. ok more like 3/8ths but close enough to half. I still have 2 of the Prototype Impulse rims i use for Drag Racing only. So there in good shape.

 

Centerline has been less than gracious with me throughout the issue. Both reps I spoke to were downright short with me on the phone and threatened to charge me if the old rims were not sent back in at a reasonable time period.

They adamantly refused to refund me my money and I had to pay to ship the old rims back to them.

I spoke to one of the local Subie shops that deal with Centerline and they claim this was a fairly common occurance with the RPMs. The shop owner said he would not trust these rims. Period. He also mentioned early issues with the Storms. Said he has heard of no other problems with their other rims that could not be attributed to short sidewalls, etc.

To be fair, I've heard my fair share of horror stories at the track about bent SSRs, bent Rotas, etc. I just wonder why Centerline is so blase about the whole RPM issue - someone could get killed.

I had originally sold the replacement Excels, however I have decided to keep them as a street set up. After mounting them today, I noticed what I though was a crack, but appears to be a scratch in the surface of the black pearl finish. At the first sign of a real crack they are going back to Centerline and this time I will sue to get my money back.

 

Same treatment here They have known about this issue for a while (More than a year) and every time someone calls them they act like they have never heard of the problem before. Centerline could care less, I have taken my business elsewhere. You will get nothing but the run arround from them. They should be reported to the DOT.

 

While washing the wheels last Sunday I found cracks in one of the spokes on the left rear wheel. These wheels have just less than 15K miles with no dings or rash.

I called Centerline up and they were ok to deal with over the phone. The rep I talked to said they changed the spoke design to beef them up and are replacing all 4 wheels with the new design. I do have to pay shipping one way, but the tire store I delt with is picking up the cost of mounting and balancing.

It looks like it's back to the stock wheels for a couple of weeks. At least they didn't break all the way though while I was driving.