I'm going to split this up into a couple posts to make it more digestible. Here's the background and the dilemma, posts after will be w/ the options. Here we go:
A couple weeks ago I got a set of 19x8.5 and 19x10 "Magnetic" style wheels from American Muscle and got some Bridgestone's to match (255/40R19 and 285/35R19). Long story short, there were tons of defects in the finish on the 8.5's, so I got an exchange from AM (they were pretty cool about it), and low and behold the replacements were just as bad, maybe worse than the originals. My shop warned me too about the cheap chinese made wheels you get from AM, and told to put the wheels on the spindle an spin them to make sure they were true. Sure enough three of the four had a bad enough wobble that I just decided to return the whole set for a refund. Killed me to, I was a big fan of the style:
All the green sticky notes point out the defects, but the 2nd pic below shows a little more closeup of a couple. One or two wouldn't have been a big deal, but one wheel had a big fisheye and the other 3 8.5's had enough of these embedded in the clear coat it was gonna drive me crazy.
In a bit of a conundrum now though -- AM was really cool about returning the wheels, but Tire Rack isn't about the tires. I can return them no problem, but I have to pay return shipping and that ain't gonna be cheap. Plus I'm still in the market for new wheels (as you can tell by me posting this thread), and I want to go up to 19's from my 18's. Thing is there's not a lot of wheels out there that I think are going to work too well with Tungsten Gray in the sizes I need (19x8.5 front & 19x9.5 or 19x10 rear).
I'm ideally looking for something with a machined face, or at least a brushed rim to make the wheels pop. Tungsten is a pretty medium gray, and most of the painted wheels in the size/bolt pattern I need are all pretty much charcoal/graphite/anthracite. Just the style right now I guess, but they'll just be kina 'meh' on my car. Take these two as an example.
These are what I'm currently running -- Konig Stampedes. 18's, polished stainless lip. Problem with these is the polished stainless picks up all the dark reflections, so if the lighting isn't right, they're too dark.
So I decided to go all out and dipped them in Anthracite from DipYourCar. IMHO, they were too dark and it doesn't look all that good:
Next up is Niche Misano's I took off my wife's Mazdaspeed 3. Just so happens to be the same bolt pattern and right offsets. If the wheels look tiny, these are 18's, it's just the tires are small(think they're 225/40R18 or something like that). The actual wheels don't look too bad but it does just kinda blend in.
Here's another one from American Muscle, charcoal magnetic's on someone's tungsten GT. You get the idea by this point...
A couple weeks ago I got a set of 19x8.5 and 19x10 "Magnetic" style wheels from American Muscle and got some Bridgestone's to match (255/40R19 and 285/35R19). Long story short, there were tons of defects in the finish on the 8.5's, so I got an exchange from AM (they were pretty cool about it), and low and behold the replacements were just as bad, maybe worse than the originals. My shop warned me too about the cheap chinese made wheels you get from AM, and told to put the wheels on the spindle an spin them to make sure they were true. Sure enough three of the four had a bad enough wobble that I just decided to return the whole set for a refund. Killed me to, I was a big fan of the style:
All the green sticky notes point out the defects, but the 2nd pic below shows a little more closeup of a couple. One or two wouldn't have been a big deal, but one wheel had a big fisheye and the other 3 8.5's had enough of these embedded in the clear coat it was gonna drive me crazy.
In a bit of a conundrum now though -- AM was really cool about returning the wheels, but Tire Rack isn't about the tires. I can return them no problem, but I have to pay return shipping and that ain't gonna be cheap. Plus I'm still in the market for new wheels (as you can tell by me posting this thread), and I want to go up to 19's from my 18's. Thing is there's not a lot of wheels out there that I think are going to work too well with Tungsten Gray in the sizes I need (19x8.5 front & 19x9.5 or 19x10 rear).
I'm ideally looking for something with a machined face, or at least a brushed rim to make the wheels pop. Tungsten is a pretty medium gray, and most of the painted wheels in the size/bolt pattern I need are all pretty much charcoal/graphite/anthracite. Just the style right now I guess, but they'll just be kina 'meh' on my car. Take these two as an example.
These are what I'm currently running -- Konig Stampedes. 18's, polished stainless lip. Problem with these is the polished stainless picks up all the dark reflections, so if the lighting isn't right, they're too dark.
So I decided to go all out and dipped them in Anthracite from DipYourCar. IMHO, they were too dark and it doesn't look all that good:
Next up is Niche Misano's I took off my wife's Mazdaspeed 3. Just so happens to be the same bolt pattern and right offsets. If the wheels look tiny, these are 18's, it's just the tires are small(think they're 225/40R18 or something like that). The actual wheels don't look too bad but it does just kinda blend in.
Here's another one from American Muscle, charcoal magnetic's on someone's tungsten GT. You get the idea by this point...