dbfrdan

I have an 02 coupe and filed a complaint with GM over the cracks in the wheels. According to this forum there are A LOT of people with this problem. It is a safety hazard. I have info on filing a complaint. PM me and I will give out the contact info. We need to do this for everyone who has had this issue. Pass it along.

ZO6 Lee

I don't have the problem but good luck. Let us know.

Bill Dearborn

I know 3 people who have had this problem. Two of them were lucky enough to have GM or a dealer help them out. Actually I don't know if anybody has ever documented the cracks as a safety issue. I have never seen anybody say they investigated the cracks and found them to be deeper than the paint.

Bill

SKF engineer

I check my thin-spokes every few car washes... Still no cracks but please let us know what happens this is a problem that stays in the back of my mind all the time.

Take care

jovette

Can you provide pictures showing the typical / usual locations for the cracks so we all know where to focus our attention when checking our wheels. Am I correct in my understanding that the rear wheels seem to have a tendency to crack with greater frequency than the front?

Thanks for your efforts to share information on this topic.

Army08

Mine cracked too. Driver side rear, just bought a replacement off forum member, should be here tomorrow.

RPHCRMZ51

I would be the one. My crack caused the tire to loose air. Would fill up to 30 lbs. and in 30 minutes all gone. The crack on the outside radiated from the lip of the rim ( next to tire ) around the thin spoke to the back of the thin spoke. When I had the tire taken off there was just a crack from the edge of the bead inward about 3/4" long. Bought a new wheel from Bob' House of Wheels.

dbfrdan

The crack in mine was all the way through. It held no air and a second crack was developing on the same wheel.

aquaholic

file your complaint with the nhtsb. they will force the recall if enough people file.

dbfrdan

Thanks, I filed with them also.

Bell

02 Coupe. My front drivers side cracked all the way through, not just the paint. Could NOT hold air. I sprung for a whole new set of aftermarket Z06 replicas from WCC. I still have the originals (3 good ones and the cracked one) and don't know what to do with them now. Any ideas?

pcfred

I've been through this, faught with GM for a few months, they had me take the car in to a dealer to inspect the wheel, they had to take the wheel off the car and tire off the wheel. After confirming the crack GM offered to pay half the cost of the wheel, about $325. I argued that they should pay the whole thing because it was a defective product, but they would not. So I decided to buy new Z06 reps from WCC and forget about it because even if GM replaced the wheel I'd still be worried about cracks later down the road because those wheels are prone to crack.
If you like the think spokes, try and find a set from 2003 up because they changed the manufacturer and the design slightly, which tells me they (GM) was well aware of the problem.

hightest

Wrong. Try and find the early 2000 thin spokes. These were manufactured by Alcoa and were forged versus spuncast. These are extremely durable wheels, and many track guys use to track with these wheels. None of the Alcoa wheels were polished or chrome, they all cam painted. After GM switched manufacturers (to save costs like usual), they began to have cracking issues until they switched manufacturers again due to the cracking problems.

pcfred

Wrong? are you saying the wheels in 2003 were NOT changed? Have you looked closely at a 2002 chrome thin spoke and a 2003?

dgrant3830

I just gave away a set of wagon wheels to another forum member. While moving them out of the garage, I saw that one of the fronts had a 1/2 inch crack in it that I had no idea was even there. I switched to chrome wagons a couple of years ago, so the original stock ones came off. I don't track the car and only drive it back and forth the work on the freeways most of the time.

87bob

Can you say oil pressure sender???????

Bill Dearborn

The thin spoke was introduced in 2000 as a forged aluminum wheel available in both painted or high polish versions. The wheel vendor couldn't keep up with demand so GM changed the design of the painted wheel slightly so it could be cast instead of being forged. This design has slightly larger spokes. The forged high polish thin spokes were sold on cars through at least 2002 that I know of. However, when a friend of mine had the wheel on his in warranty 2002 crack in 2004 (about a month before production switched to the C6) the dealer ordered a new wheel to replace it and they found out it had slightly larger spokes than the 3 remaining wheels. The dealer then ordered 3 more wheels to replace the rest of the wheels. Obviously, GM has reduced the types of wheels (cast/forged) they are selling to reduce cost of replacement parts. The low level person who made that decision probably didn't realize there was a difference in the wheels.

Bill

jornahow

Hightest said:

Wrong. Try and find the early 2000 thin spokes. These were manufactured by Alcoa and were forged versus spuncast. These are extremely durable wheels, and many track guys use to track with these wheels. None of the Alcoa wheels were polished or chrome, they all cam painted. After GM switched manufacturers (to save costs like usual), they began to have cracking issues until they switched manufacturers again due to the cracking problems.


Sorry Hightest, that is not correct. My 2002 coupe manufactured June 2002 came with high polished thin spokes from the factory. They are forged Alcoa wheels. So far no cracks. I would like particulars as to the manufacturer of the cracked wheels

rustyedge

shouldnt the cracked wheels be covered under manufactors defect warr

dbfrdan

You would think, but that would just cost them money.