rhart

Wheel Dynamics

Bad Company. Bad customer service. Very bad products.

I purchased 4 brand new in the box 808 wheels from Eli at Wheel Dynamics for a Porsche 997 Carrera S. 19 x 8’s and 19 x 11’s. Upon arrival I mounted new Michelin Pilot Sport tires in the correct factory spec size. When we went to put the newly mounted wheels on the car none of the 4 wheels would fit. The hubs were all too small. I called Eli and he said “you have to grind the wheel centers to make them fit”. Really? Despite this being a Bush League fix we tried sanding one of the front wheels. After 20 minutes of fiddling it would still not fit.

The following morning I tried to get Eli on the phone. He was too busy to take my call and did not call back. I called later using a different name and he came to the phone. I told him I want my money back for the poor quality 808 wheels. He said bring the wheels to El Monte (an hour drive away) and he will grind the wheels until they fit. This would involve bringing two cars with two people since the wheels won’t fit inside the Carrera. He also said he would not reimburse me for the removing the new tires if we had to transfer them to different wheels. This is a great example of very poor customer service. He refuses to refund money on a new and defective product. I’ve been doing Porsche cars for 49 years and I’ve never heard of a wheel that you had to auger out in order for it to fit. This is not a fitment problem on a lowered or modified car! This is a stock 997 Porsche with stock suspension at the stock height. Even if the wheel centers were ground out to get them to fit they certainly would not fit correctly since there is no way to make the hole dimensionally accurate without mounting it on a CNC machine. This calls into question safety issues and the professionalism of Eli and Wheel Dynamics. Wheel buyers beware of this outfit.

Johnzoly

Thank you so much for the heads up!

Steve Weiner-Rennsport Systems

Hi,

I just read the paragraph on the Wheel Dynamics website called "Important Information When Buying Wheels" and its seems like they ignored/violated their own advice about buying Porsche-specific wheels and not grinding something to fit.

Time to bring that to their attention as well as the BBB.

r911

if you paid with a credit card, call them and have a talk

Wheel Dynamics

“If your story was correct and everything you said in it were true then we can see why we have received negative comments from the band-wagoner”
Rick of California Porsche or Touchless Concepts or Dusty911cars or whatever name he’s going by today is difficult to find to say the least (I think I know why, but we will get to that later)

First off allow for me to make some statements about who we are, Wheel Dynamics is a board-sponsor and a long time vendor in the Porsche community. We have sold countless sets of the 808-Series wheels and without any installation issues.
As fate would have it here is an unsolicited comment that I personally received today:
_________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
Jerry [mailto:XXXXXXX@XXXXXXXXXXXX.com]
Friday, July 08, 2016 3:32 PM
sales@wheeldynamics.com
Subject: Thank You

Dear Eli,

I wanted to follow up to say "thanks" for the fantastic 808 wheels for my 997 Turbo. I must say that I was a bit apprehensive about moving to a non-OEM wheel, particularly one with fairly aggressive offsets. But having installed the wheels today, I can happily report that they simply look fantastic. I consider myself quite particular when it comes to car-related components, and have an expectation that add-ones will meet the same quality standard as factory parts. The 808's did not disappoint. You can simply tell that someone took the time to fine tune the offsets to match the wide body fender line. Plus, the 808 really matches the style of the 911.

Finish-wise, it was easy to deduce that these wheels were assembled with care- the hyper silver is a great contrast to my all-black Turbo and the wheels arrived without a blemish. Awesome packaging! My only regret? Not doing this swap sooner.

I find these wheels to be an excellent value. Combined with the re-use of factory hardware, the 808 is the logical choice for a Porsche enthusiast.

I also want to say thanks for spending some time with me on the phone in completing the purchase. You're a nice guy and a great asset to the hobby.

With best regards,

J. M., XXXXXXX Partner
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, LLC
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX, New Jersey 08XXX
(XXX) XXX – XXXX corporate office
(XXX) XXX - XXXX cell

_________________________________________________________

On 6/24/2016 Rick calls places an order for a set of wheels for a 2006 Carrera C2 and receives a wholesale discount on his purchase, which he says it’s his customer then his car & he keeps on flip-flopping, but honestly we are okay with him getting his retailers discount all the same, it is he that will need to file a “user” or “retail use” not us.

Less than 4-hours after he placed the order we had a driver arrive at his location with wheels, he paid for shipping however we had an extra hand this day so we figured we’d take the long drive down to Costa Mesa in an afternoon (taking the driver around 3-hours round trip) we could have probably saved by shipping them but hey why not deliver the same day. Amazing service, oh, that’s right he didn’t mention that part.

So my driver takes a bolt kit and a set of matching center caps with him just to offer the customer so he can see in person how they look. Great support right? Well during his last call he called this some sort of deceitful tactic? Once again amazing idea by the driver, even took a separate invoice just in case the customer wanted the extra parts (which he refused).
Skip forward to the afternoon of 7/7/2016
Rick calls me and says the wheels you sent me are not fitting, they all don’t fit, I explain to Rick that we have sold thousands (that is correct) of the 808-Series wheels over the years from 18”, 19”, 20”, 21” and 22” and this was unusual that all four wheels (which by the way are not manufactured together, meaning that fronts are generally manufactured separately from the rears and so the center bore or hub centers are not drilled a set together as a custom built forged wheel might be done) I feel the need to explain this to Rick as it doesn’t seem that he understands how wheels are manufactured. I recommend that he check the hub-centers of the wheels and the vehicle to ensure there are no obstructions ie rust or excess paint. He tells me that he will check this and we conclude the conversation for the day.
Skip forward to this morning 7/8/2016
It should be noted that by the time I take the call from Rick who “according to one of the staff members” was pretending to be someone else I had already taken close to 15-calls, a little busy today, when I greet Rick is first statement is “I called you earlier and you can’t return my call”, he also stated and I quote “If you don’t make things right for me I will ruin you on Rennlist, 6speed, Pelican and Yelp and I will sue you”. Reluctantly I then asked him politely “who is this”…. Well he never said who he was and so I was initially clueless as to who he was or what he wanted however one of the girls here handed me his message from earlier while I was talking with him that stated “If Eli does not return my call in 5-minutes I will sue your business”. Well the girls did the right thing in allowing me to finish with the customer I was helping before taking on call-backs. Now back to the conversation; Rick tells me you need to come pick-up your wheels, refund me my money, pay for the tire service. I explain to Rick how rare it would be for two separately molded wheels to not fit the Porsche. I then explained to Rick that since it was early enough he could come by (no traffic at this time) and we would be happy to perform the installation for him at no charge. Obviously in his fit of rage he went back and forth regarding going to court and suing us and asking what we were going to do, given that I felt that I was dealing with an individual that was not playing with a full deck I politely told Rick that it was his right to take us to court as he had threatened but in no way were be going to be bullied into doing things his way.
Ladies in Gentlemen,
We are happy to fix things or replace things that are broken; obviously we would have not been in business for 16-years. However when you call a making threats and demands with attached ultimatums along with threats of intent do damage to a business’s reputation you are sending a clear message to those who have been a part of the Porsche community for so many years.
Why would the customer not want for us to make corrections? Well during conversations he slipped up and make a statement I questioned, Rick said “you cost me a sale”, later he said “this is going on my production car”…. I’m just going to leave those statements there since why would you not want the wheels installed that you paid for? Let’s pay Devil’s advocate and say that for some reason all four wheels coming from two separate molds did not fit, okay well guess what? We stock over 3,000 Porsche fit wheels in our shop, how easy would it be for us to fix any issue, we do have other Porsche cars here we could have easily test fitted to confirm in from of the customer right?

I am disappointed in you Steve as a Technical Advisor that you would chime in with such disregard to the one sided tale. How about “Let’s allow Wheel Dynamics to chime in so we can know both sides”. Whenever I see a vendor on the forums being attacked I allow both sides to settle their matters, this is a vendor to vendor issue, Rick knows better but his tactics are quite those of a mudslinger.

I invite a local Rennlist member to come to my shop, we will together open up a set of wheels and mount them on a Porsche here, I also invite Rick to attend, bring your wheels with you so we can get to the bottom of this.

Food for thought: Rick since you in your own words "I’ve been doing Porsche cars for 49 years" don't you think it's time you become a board sponsor for the good of the community rather than for a vendor to bash a paying vendor

Johnzoly

Thank you for explaining your side of this issue!

Wheel Dynamics

I was very surprised as to the method of the way Rick was acting, at first I thought it was a friend prank-ing me... it was that fake sounding of a threat... Who does that?

There are many of you out there that I have sold wheels to and I certainly hope that there will be some that will chime in and express fair in our dealings as we have been a sponsor, not just a "fly under the radar" vendor who ONLY USES THESE FORUMS to bully their way into resolving issues.

Offer still stands, we will make the installation for you if you have any doubts as to how it should be done, we will even be happy to install your set on a Porsche we have here, if we need to swap over a new set for the customer then "not a problem"....

The strange thing is that he refused to consider a swap "if" that was the issue, but strange how this set was in a container of 800 other 18" and 19" wheels that didn't have that same problem.... just telling it like it is... that is all.

theiceman

Dumb question :
What is the od of the hub on this car when measured with a digital calliper? What is the id of the wheels when measured the same way ?

psychoideas

^^^^
Smart Question.

Spyerx

You're in business for 16 years, do the right thing, take the wheels back and send a new set. Is this kind of publicity worth it to you? If the wheels are fine, resell them as take offs, if not fix them or trash them. Who knows, buyer could be totally off and clueless, he might be an a-hole, he might have no clue, but as a business owner, its not worth it.

Amber Gramps

Rhart,

I'm far more suspicious of your hubs than I am of the 808 wheels. Your reluctance to invest a couple hours of your time and drive up to El Monte also speaks volumes. VOLUMES.

If you will notice the hub pictured below has enough surface corrosion to cause even factory wheels to be difficult to mount on the hub-centric casting. It isn't at all uncommon for hubs and wheels to be in need of a serious scrubbing with a rotary wire brush to clean the crap off of them. Also not at all uncommon is the need to remove finishes/paints/anodizing/plating and the like off of a new set of wheels to fit on the hub centric type hub. Identically milled wheels could get a coating that's only a micron thick while another get multiple layers of powder coating all dependant on the desired look. Remember the candy coatings of the 1980's? Holly Crap that stuff was thick. Even powder coating will cause far more interference than a layer of rainbow zinc. Guess what??.....The installer removes it.

Want to talk about hub centric wheel spacers? I've had to tap them hard with a hammer to get them on and use a chisel to get them off.

Suck up your pride and let Eli take a look. I would.



Ever removed the rotors off of a 2014 TRD Sport? They are so hub centric that it requires bolts be screwed into the rotor to press them off the hubs....heaven forbid there be any corrosion.

Amber Gramps

I'm not suggesting that aluminum needs to be shaved off of the wheels, but that the finish may be too thick. What finish do the wheels have? And at 40,000 miles your hubs could have lots of issues. I too own a 911 and at one point thought it was perfect. Turns out that at 50,000 miles the hub's on my car needed serious attention. Have you mic'd the ID and OD involved?

mooty

person A drives subject wheel and car to person B.
have another RL'ster present or better yet, take video.
fit the damn wheel to the damn car.
we can all see.
not very hard.

let's do it.
the season is over for my fav soap. so i will tune in here.
video will tell story

73911

No one seems to be measuring anything here. No one has a set of dial calipers?

Richard Newton
FIA Historic Rules

Amber Gramps

Yep, you know me......I'll roast anyone. Either side