Cracked steel wheels

[FB71]

^^^ The wheels do not crack from heat. They crack from repeated distortion due to to excessive side loading. I've had Festivas since about the time they were new, have carried over 1200lbs of mulch and top soil, towed cars heavier than the festy,drag raced in a bracket class, and have yet to have a single stock wheel fail. I suggest you carefully review the environment in which this issue develops....

[Omgloltokyodrift]

If you've never had a wheel fail before, how do you know the circumstances of cracking a wheel?

[FestYboy]

^ do you even know who that guy is? if you did, you wouldn't question him.

BTW Jim's right, i've seen the results of excessive lateral loading and it's what's happening to your wheels.

[Seth]

If you've never had a wheel fail before, how do you know the circumstances of cracking a wheel?

cause he knows under what circumstances the wheels do not fail.

[gothguydante]

Jerry jerry jerry.... haha IMO he has to be driving his car pretty rough maybe he hits speed bumps to hard or curbs... my frin's civic cracked one of his steele's by hitting a curb straight on the pressure on it caused it to crack and yet it didn't dent it... kinda weird..

[Pu241]

The wheels crack in the same place every time (I'm up to four cracked wheels now). They crack on the ears of the hub. It's from the heat that the solid rotors produce, stopping the car from 75 downhill, when it's cooler at night.
On a side note, my most recent cracked wheel was in normal driving like normal old people driving, trying to save gas and slow). Just driving down the street, and all of a sudden it started to vibrate violently.

Steels do not crack due to heat they may well distort if you rotors and hydraulic cylinders didn't fail first, which would be when the boiling point of your brake fluid is reached.
You are overloading the wheels laterally, they were not designed to be loaded perpendicular to their plane of rotation.
However, I can see a lovely scene in which your wheels fail in a run at maximum speed that could well be worth seeing!

YOU GUYS LIKE ME, YOU REALLY LIKE ME! AWWWWWWWWWW
Hugs and kisses,
OMGLOLTOKYODRIFT

Clearly, you also have sociological issues, not being able to tell friend from foe!
Fortunately, nature tends to edit those people from the population quickly!
Just encase you're still confused.
If I cared about your well being, I'd fly out there smack you about the head and face (incidentally it looks like someone already took care of that, the slow speech indicates a concussion which was not properly cared for!) and take your car before you hurt yourself or worst yet someone else!
I can only hope your parents had you neutered early so you don't pass on that particular set of genes.
On the other hand, another entry in the Darwin Awards is always welcome!

[FB71]

If you've never had a wheel fail before, how do you know the circumstances of cracking a wheel?

I said I have not had a stock wheel fail. I did not say I've never seen any wheel fail. If I still had access to the photo database within FMC (Ford Motor Co), I could show you thousands of pics of failed components, coupled with the data collected during their failure. I was involved in the investigation of the Firestone tire failures in 1999-2000. Long story short, I do have a credible background to qualify my comments. On what education and experience do you base you statement?

[gothguydante]

I said I have not had a stock wheel fail. I did not say I've never seen any wheel fail. If I still had access to the photo database within FMC (Ford Motor Co), I could show you thousands of pics of failed components, coupled with the data collected during their failure. I was involved in the investigation of the Firestone tire failures in 1999-2000. Long story short, I do have a credible background to qualify my comments. On what education and experience do you base you statement?

yeah i think you just won.....

[JPT]

...On a side note, my most recent cracked wheel was in normal driving (like normal old people driving, trying to save gas and slow). Just driving down the street, and all of a sudden it started to vibrate violently.

It cracked because you stressed the crap out of it. The crack was just waiting for you to hit a small bump.

YOU GUYS LIKE ME, YOU REALLY LIKE ME! AWWWWWWWWWW

Yeah, we freakin' love ya.

Hey, do yourself a BIG favor and stop playing kiddie games on public roads. Yeah I know middle of the night, deserted road... Doesn't matter, it's stupid. Also, since you like corners so much, why not be smart and do the Aspire swap? Think about it. Bigger discs, VENTILATED discs, rear sway bar, the chance to put on stronger rims and MUCH better rubber. Combine that with some common sense and you can have a lot of fun and won't be risking death for stupid thrills.

There are better ways to get attention.

Then again, maybe you just have a death wish.

If so, good luck. It'll be sad.

[MONSOON]

If youre not going to do the Aspire swap at least upgrade to a better rim and tire combo. Im not saying aftermarket rims will deal with stupid driving better. But probably have a better chance of dealing with it.

But if you decide not to follow anyones advice here. Please make sure your freinds always follow you with a camera on your high speed low intelligence drives. We always enjoy video of fiery wrecks.

[gothguydante]

but but i want the car it's got parts and stuff... how about this make sure you don't damage anything good when you die...

we need some of this going on....

[MONSOON]

ROFLMAO! Gawd I love this forum. The sensitivity shown at times is amazing! Its nice to find someplace where you fit right in!

[sodikartracer]

Well i have to butt in here and say that i have no background knowledge on wheel failures at all, but when you say that Chris has a death wish and is risking his and others lives by driving like that that is all wrong. From watching the video over and over you can see that he is an amazing driver and he knows that road like the back of his hand. He has previously stated that he was not pushing 100 percent because he would have endangered the lives of other people. I am sure It has taken him a long time to work up to be able to go as fast as he does down that mountain. Racing, whether it be wheel to wheel, time trials, drag racing etc. etc. is dangerous period. he knows the risks as well as anybody. But it is a calculated risk and the more times he gets in his car the better he becomes and the risk level decreases. Not only Chris but his passengers as well know the risks involved in motorsports and by joining him they know what they are getting themselves into. Not that i condone street racing but that seems about as safe as it gets, closed roads, middle of the night, a road that has be driven 100's of times, and an exceptional driver. His driving may seem stupid to some, but to him it is no different than anybody else's hobbies. It is what he enjoys to do and he does it well.

- Conor

[Omgloltokyodrift]

Clearly, you also have sociological issues, not being able to tell friend from foe!
Fortunately, nature tends to edit those people from the population quickly!
Just encase you're still confused.
If I cared about your well being, I'd fly out there smack you about the head and face (incidentally it looks like someone already took care of that, the slow speech indicates a concussion which was not properly cared for!) and take your car before you hurt yourself or worst yet someone else!
I can only hope your parents had you neutered early so you don't pass on that particular set of genes.
On the other hand, another entry in the Darwin Awards is always welcome!

Clearly, you also have interwebz user issues. Sarcasm is not THAT hard to notice from all caps, and a huge "AWWW."

I said I have not had a stock wheel fail. I did not say I've never seen any wheel fail. If I still had access to the photo database within FMC (Ford Motor Co), I could show you thousands of pics of failed components, coupled with the data collected during their failure. I was involved in the investigation of the Firestone tire failures in 1999-2000. Long story short, I do have a credible background to qualify my comments. On what education and experience do you base you statement?

I'm sorry Jim, that post might have come across as sarcastic (wasn't trying to be). I was talking about a Festiva wheel.

I've had Festivas since about the time they were new, have carried over 1200lbs of mulch and top soil, towed cars heavier than the festy,drag raced in a bracket class, and have yet to have a single stock wheel fail. I suggest you carefully review the environment in which this issue develops....

Is this all with a Festiva (not sarcastic, serious question)? If so, I don't see an application where the brakes will see the heat that mine do on a 5 mile downhill course, slowing the car down from freeway speeds. (My friends are able to light cigarettes on the rotors at the bottom. I don't bring up a temp-gun so I don't know the exact temperature, but they're warm.) So now for a question (still not sarcastic), does the heat have as much, more, less, or none of an impact on the Festiva's steel wheels as the lateral forces from cornering that hard?

I would figure that the heat makes the Festiva steel wheel more brittle, then the cooler air at night would cause the metal to change temperature quicker, causing it to crack. And I didn't think the lateral forces were at fault because I don't think the tires have enough grip to apply THAT much force to the wheels. I could understand some race tires or decent street tires demolishing wheels like that, but 12's are generally used for trailer tires. The small tread width, and huge sidewalls should absorb most of the harsh cornering force... Right?

Thanks Jim, for actually responding without being aggressive or insulting. (again, not sarcastic)












Thanks Conor. You really watched that video over and over??? lol

[FestYboy]

eventhough the tires are small, the pics you've shown earlier displayed excessive rollover on the sidewalls. that's an indication of excessive lateral loading, and when the sidewalls rollover like that it puts stupid amounts of pressure diagonaly across the rim (lower outer lip to upper inner lip). this might not seem to be the reason for the cracking, but remember that up to this point, evertyhing can still flex to deal with the stresses. what isn't flexing is the center of the rim where it mounts hard and flush with the hub. that area can't flex. that also happens to be where you're seeing the cracking, this isn't a coincidence (sp).