For those that have tried to find the "right" wheels for 35s, especially for use with locking hubs, you know the struggle.
By "right" I mean the optimal combination of diameter, width, backspacing and bolt pattern that have been proven to work well by those in the know. Recently, I started specifically looking for wheels with a very specific combination of parameters (17x7.5, 4" bs, 5x5.5) with a center bore large enough (4.25") to fit the Yukon hubs. After enormous amounts of time looking at existing aftermarket wheels, I could not find single alloy wheel that matched all those specs. I found some steel options and some alloy wheels that were close enough, but I would be compromising on more than 1 specification, which was a no go for me.
So I did the next sane thing anyone would do and called around companies in the US to see if there was anyone that could help make a wheel like that and the answer was mostly different versions of "no". Out of curiosity, I looked at the prices for forged alloy wheels since some of the companies offered some size customization (Trail Ready, Forgeline ..) and the costs were crazy high. I don't know if they were always this high, but close to 2k per wheel seemed very expensive.
Still not wanting to give up, I then explored some of the Chinese websites to see if there was anything available from overseas. The reasons were two fold, we already know where most of the aftermarket wheel options are sourced from, and second, the quality of items from overseas is mostly as how you demand it. You want cheap crap, you can get it, you want high quality stuff, you can get that too, everything for the right cost from the right supplier.
So after a bunch more research and dilly-dallying, I decided to take an experimental plunge to get a set of custom wheels (forged 6061) made with the specs I had in mind. I don't know if anyone has tried this previously on this forum, but I could not find anything online and sometimes one just has to take a chance. The cost for the entire set is just a bit over what companies want here for a single wheel. I don't know if that is too good to be true, but I was curious enough to try and find out.
Below are a rendering the wheels I chose.
Here is a photoshop that I did to see how the wheels would look on a TJ.
Here is the wheel in production.
I will not have the wheels in hand for another month or two, but I will come back here and post an update when I do have them.
Caveat emptor - I could get lucky or this could be a stupid way to throw away money, or somewhere in-between. For those that want to try it, it's all on you to do the needed research and make choices that seem right to you. I just wanted to share the option that I found for those of you that care enough about stuff like this and willing go into rabbit holes. If you try this and it goes sideways, don't come yell at me
By "right" I mean the optimal combination of diameter, width, backspacing and bolt pattern that have been proven to work well by those in the know. Recently, I started specifically looking for wheels with a very specific combination of parameters (17x7.5, 4" bs, 5x5.5) with a center bore large enough (4.25") to fit the Yukon hubs. After enormous amounts of time looking at existing aftermarket wheels, I could not find single alloy wheel that matched all those specs. I found some steel options and some alloy wheels that were close enough, but I would be compromising on more than 1 specification, which was a no go for me.
So I did the next sane thing anyone would do and called around companies in the US to see if there was anyone that could help make a wheel like that and the answer was mostly different versions of "no". Out of curiosity, I looked at the prices for forged alloy wheels since some of the companies offered some size customization (Trail Ready, Forgeline ..) and the costs were crazy high. I don't know if they were always this high, but close to 2k per wheel seemed very expensive.
Still not wanting to give up, I then explored some of the Chinese websites to see if there was anything available from overseas. The reasons were two fold, we already know where most of the aftermarket wheel options are sourced from, and second, the quality of items from overseas is mostly as how you demand it. You want cheap crap, you can get it, you want high quality stuff, you can get that too, everything for the right cost from the right supplier.
So after a bunch more research and dilly-dallying, I decided to take an experimental plunge to get a set of custom wheels (forged 6061) made with the specs I had in mind. I don't know if anyone has tried this previously on this forum, but I could not find anything online and sometimes one just has to take a chance. The cost for the entire set is just a bit over what companies want here for a single wheel. I don't know if that is too good to be true, but I was curious enough to try and find out.
Below are a rendering the wheels I chose.
Here is a photoshop that I did to see how the wheels would look on a TJ.
Here is the wheel in production.
I will not have the wheels in hand for another month or two, but I will come back here and post an update when I do have them.
Caveat emptor - I could get lucky or this could be a stupid way to throw away money, or somewhere in-between. For those that want to try it, it's all on you to do the needed research and make choices that seem right to you. I just wanted to share the option that I found for those of you that care enough about stuff like this and willing go into rabbit holes. If you try this and it goes sideways, don't come yell at me
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