I just received a set of Flik Wasps for my new 2006 Mini Cooper S Convertible and a set of 215/45/17 tires from Edge Racing.

Several folks on the internet indicated the size 205/45/17, and not the 215's. I looked in the Mini manual and it only lists up to the 205's,

I installed the wheels and tires tonight on my Mini, and low and behold my steering wheel is vibrating profusely at speeds between 40 and 60 mph.

I can't believe the vibrations in the steering. I even checked the air pressure, direction of the "rotation" on the wheels and even the centric hub plastic inserts. All seems fine.

Edge racing indicated that they did "roadforce balancing".

Any advice?

Thanks,
KRiese
Clearwater, Florida
Email: riesek2003@yahoo.com

 

Go here -> http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/search/findgsp9700.cfm and find a shop nearest your location equipped with the Hunter GSP9700 balancing machine. I'm thinking Edge Racing didn't do it right.

 

Thanks. There's a Tires Plus located one mile from me. They balanced my last tires. I will take it to them.

 

Took my Mini to Wheel Tecin Tampa Florida. They Road Balaqnced the wheels and found all were not balanced correctly by edge racing and firthermore, 2 of them were not round (i.e. not true). Hence, the vibration issue.

I called Alex at Edge Racing and he offered to sned over UPS on Monday to pick up all 4 wheels/tires for a full refund. I took his offer, as I am tired of the whole issue.

Thanks for your suggestions.

K.Riese

 

Tireplus would not touch them, wince they were worried that they might scratch the rims. After going to three different shops, I took my Mini to Wheel Tec in Tampa, Florida. They Road Balanced on e hunter machine. They said the wheels were not balanced correctly by edge racing. Furthermore, they said 2 of them were not round (i.e. not true). Hence, the vibration issue. I even watched them balance one of the warp rims and I saw how off it was.

I called Alex at Edge Racing. Got the run around for a couple of hours. Finally, after he exhaysted all of my energy, he offered to send over UPS on Monday to pick up all 4 wheels/tires for a full refund. I accecptrf his offer, as I am tired of the whole issue. Unfortunately, the price and looks of the wasps are so hot on my Mini. But I cannot spend the next 5 years driving on bad wheels.

Thanks for your suggestions.

K.Riese

 

seems to be the second set of wheels I've seen Edge Racing sell that weren't kosher

 

I think I'll just stick with my original R92 16″ wheels also known as the “7 Fin Spoke”.

 

edge will go out of business if they keep this up.

 

Are you saying this is a common occurance?

 

Yeah i really hope not cuz im scheduled to get my wheels from them on Monday! Ive been waitin like 2 months for them to get me these Flik Wasps and if they are f'ed up Im gonna go crazy!

 

^^ they'll just send you riesek2003's old set.

 

I'd like to know what resolves this.

 

do a search - someone else had a problem with this vendor in the last week (chunk in a tire) and Edge Racing stopped returning calls or emails.

 

Wow. Waiting 2 months. Maybe you ordered a different set of Fliks than I did. I ordered them last Wednesday and on Thursday UPS dropped off the first 3 of a total of 4 wheels/tires. Yesterday, they dropped of the 4th wheel/tire. I immediately installed them within one hour after receiving the wheels/tires. That is when my smooth steering went "ape nuts" and began vibrating profusely! I then removed all of the weehls/tires and reinstalled them again using my torque wrench and applying only 85 lbs of pressure by hand to each lug nut. I made sure the hub-centric rings were on the hub also correctly. Nothing worked.

I then went to 2 different tires shops and they would not touch them because they felt that they would scratch them. The third and final shop spent over an hour balancing them on the best hunter road balancing machine. The shop owner took me to the mechanic balancing the wheels and he showed me the bent rims while they were on the machine. I actually saw them spinning in a warped manner.

I'm not saying all of Edge Racing wheels/tires are bad. All I am saying is that I got a bad set.

Hopefully you will get a good set. I know others have had great wheels/tires from Edge Racing. My experiance has just not been good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I'll let you all how things turn out and see if Alex at edge racing is a man of his word. He said UPS would be at my home on Monday (6/12/06) to pick them up and he'll give me a full refund.

 

ya i have the same problem... i thought it was just me.....really bad vibrations... but i have had them for almost a year now. I figure it was the hub centric rings being plasitc.

 

^^ no. does not matter whether they are plastic or not. (actually wheels will
not vibrate even if you don't use hubcentric rings if they are balanced and you
install them correctly).

you have either an unbalanced wheel, warped wheel, not a perfectly round
wheel, or not a perfectly round tire.

you're going to damage your wheel bearings.

 

great.

 

On a positive note, I've had the 17" Wasps on my '05 MCS for well over a year and 25k miles and two sets of tires (the current set being the RT615 in size 215/45R17) and no vibration issues. Wheels are from Edge and current tires are from Edge. I work in the auto industry and could've purchased my wheels/tires from myself, yet went w/ Edge because of their pricing and perceived value. I balanced my last set of tires once upon initial install and never balanced them again. The current set is just as smooth, plastic hubcentrics and all.
By the way, I'm not sure which shops you guys are contacting that are so paranoid of working on your wheels. Are they not aware that most O.E. wheels probably cost triple what your Fliks cost I don't care if you're riding on 14" steel wheels or 24" inch chrome spokes, you have to work hard to scratch a wheel while balancing them.

Anywho, sorry to hear about your poor experience w/ your purchase. I hope all turns out well. Keep in mind that bent wheels are not always the supplier/mfgs. fault, whenever you get wheels shipped via UPS/DHL/FEDEX etc...you'd better open them before turning the driver away. Our shop has experienced quite a number of bent wheels that are obvious shipping damage. If the driver gets out before you notice it, it's a matter of your word against theirs.

Later

 

When I removed the packaging on all 4 wheels, they "appeared" to be cosmetically ok. So I doubt UPS did anything wrong.

 

Edge Racing isn't the only company that makes a mistake once in a whlie and, like kenchan said, it's not always the wheels. I got a set of wheels w/ tires from Tirerack once that caused the same kind of vibration. Fortunately it was just a bad balance job on three of them. I might have thought it was a case of someone having a stroke or something and forgetting to balance after mounting, but they all had wheel weights on them..... Anyway, since I agreed to take them to one of their recommended installers for the re-balancing, Tirerack refunded the cost of the job.

 

I spoke with Leo at Edge Racing today. UPS picked up my wheels from home yesterday and Leo verified that Edge Racing now has them back. He said in a few days I should see the monies that I paid for them, and the balancing fee that I paid for, all back on my credit card. I will advise when this shows up on my credit card. So far, Edge Racing has kept their word.

 

no they didn't. you trusted their site that you would get a quality product
and you didn't. they're just following through as they should.

 

Well, I guess you're right. I only meant their word on refunding me the monies I spent.

 

Looks like I ended up with your old wheels. I just got mine today, same exact problem.

I took them to a tire shop in Riverview to try to have them rebalanced, and they said some of the wheels took 8oz to attempt to balance (they said no more the 2-3 is normal) and in 2 cases even tried dismounting and remounting the tires in an attempt to smooth it out, but to no avaial. Its still vibrating, allbeit not as bad, but totally unacceptable for a new set of tires.

I am now on hold trying to get them to pick these up as well. Totally unacceptable. I had a set of 18x7.5 Flik wheels for almost a year and no problem with those, I go to 17x7 w/215/40/17 only to have the same thing happen.