Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/567620
MTD September 2015 'Tere's no repairing it; you have to get another wheel' Clad wheels: Handle with extreme care By Ann Neal C lad wheels require extreme care during mounting and balancing. Without it, a dealer will pay the ul- timate price: replacing the wheel. Some dealers are acutely aware of the latest market trend afecting mounting and balancing. "We see a lot of them," says Jim Ramsey, CEO and president of Lamb Ventures LP, which does business as Lamb's Tire & Automotive. "It looks like a nice chrome wheel but it's plastic. If you're not careful, you'll break it. Tere's no repairing it; you have to get another wheel." For other dealers, clad wheels are not an issue, at least not yet. "To date I've not seen many of those kinds of wheels," says Terry John, owner of Mid-Atlantic Tire LLC, which does business as Mid-Atlantic Tire Pros. His store recently received Five-Star dealer status from the Tire Pros organization and has provided service to nearly 50,000 customers. Te fve-bay store is in rural Easton, Md. "Our percentage of higher-end vehicles with aluminum alloy wheels is much smaller than Annapolis or Washington, D.C.," John says. "We do a lot of trucks and family vehicles, and they historically do not have wheels that are easily damaged." But the mix of wheels coming to John's shop will surely shif to more cladded chrome wheels, according to equipment manufacturers. "Tere is a signifcant trend toward these wheels," says Greg Meyer, product manager, wheel balancers for Hunter Engineering Co. "Te plastic cladding on these wheels gives a very smooth and expensive appearance without the cost of highly polished chrome wheels." Meyer says clad wheels have proven popular with customers. Plastic clad wheels are a recent phenomenon dealers are struggling with, according to Scot Farr, wheel service and equipment business development manager for Bosch Auto- motive Service Solutions LLC. "Clad wheel proliferation is prety extreme right now. Tere's not a day goes by in a shop in North America where they're not confronted by some type of cladding." A clad wheel is an alloy wheel with a delicate chrome- painted plastic cover bonded to the face of the wheel. For car manufacturers, clad wheels are more cost-efective than traditional chrome wheels. "Alloy wheels are cast for ft and style. Many OEs have multiple brands, such as Dodge/Chrysler or Chevrolet/Buick, that utilize the same base casting but with diferent fascia," says Farr. "With casting it is less expensive to make changes to style and appearance." However, clad wheels can be far from cost-efective for shops that service them. "Te plastic cladding is delicate and can be easily damaged," says Meyer. Te clad wheel covers cannot be removed, repaired or replaced. If they are damaged during balancing or mounting, the wheel must be replaced at the dealer's expense. Don't touch the plastic Clad wheels afect both the balancing and mounting processes. For example, pressure cups and cones cannot be used to balance a clad wheel. Meyer explains: "On the balancer, it is common to use a cup with a rubber protective ring to contact the face of a steel or alloy wheel. With clad wheels, the pressure from a cup can crack the plastic cladding. For these wheels it is recommended to use a fange plate. A fange plate has pins that only contact the wheel in the lug holes where the lug nuts would contact the wheel, avoiding damage." Traditional cones can feature Bosch says the hand actuated bead breaker in its TCE4275 swing arm tire changer gives technicians more control when unseating beads that are close to the plastic cladding. 50