New Wheels; ultra slow leak

jkonkle · 10-01-2005, 01:08 AM

Hey all - I have just put on some AVUS Wheels; bought from 410motoring.com via ebay! Great price and great looking (will post pic's later).

A couple of things first.

1) In austin I found a great guy at Goodyear Service Center on Lamar, Ryan who is EMT Certified. He pulled the tires on the rims no problems. I highly recommend him if you are needing to do anything with EMTs in North Austin.
2) I had originally taken my rims and wheels to SoulSpeed; but lack of EMT experience cost me two tire pressure sensors and a week's time.

So, the rims are sweet; but have had a very very slow leak since they were put on. I took them back to Ryan at Goodyear; nothing showed up when the tire/wheel was off the car. On the car; I get leak - about 1lb per hour. I've changed valve stem's in the in-built valve and the back-mounted TPS. All is well. While washing the car tonight I sprayed the rims extra heavy with "bucket free car wash" especially the back-left. Anyway, when the soapy bubbles settled at the bottom of the rim and voila - slow; big bubbles started forming. I marked the location; but can't really get a wrench in their right now. Besides tightening; is there anyway to improve the seal without dis-mounting the tire?

Thanks

JK

rocco16 · 10-06-2005, 12:53 PM

One pound per hour is not a slow leak...you'd have to air up every morning and that's not acceptable.

Are these mult-piece wheels? I've had a slow leak (half-pound/24hrs) in one of my HRE's since new. I can live with it, though.

New wheels should not leak...send them back to seller under warranty or ask for an offset in selling price so you can have them repaired locally, depending on just where the leaks are.
(That isn't very clear from your post...wrench? tightening? seal? If you are talking about the bolts holding the rim halves together on a three-piece wheel, tightening those bolts will NOT stop any leaks).

Good luck with this. Nothing is more frustrating than cool new wheels that won't hold air.

Larry
code5coupe

jkonkle · 10-10-2005, 01:24 AM

Hey thanks for the response; the wheels are AVUS Wheels (www.avuswheels.com).

So, the rim was leaking; they claimed the tireiron did the damage during mount/dismount. They pop'd it appart and put it back together for just shipping under warranty; even though it may have happened during mount process.

damage as noted by avus wheels

However, the issue I have now is that where they drilled the front rims tire pressure sensor's don't clear the suspension knuckle when the rim goe's round and round....

Driver Side; damaged during driving on limecreek road

passenger side - trim'd so I could avoid damanage like driver side

So, this week I'll see where we go with these wheels. all I can say is that I don't think these wheel companies check anything for fitament; when I got the damn tires they weren't even drilled for TPS's....ugh!

hopefully the drama will end with some beautiful wheels!!

JK

leadfoot4 · 10-11-2005, 05:53 AM

JK, don't take this personally...Putting a valve stem on the INSIDE of a rim. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

jkonkle · 11-01-2005, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leadfoot4

JK, don't take this personally...Putting a valve stem on the INSIDE of a rim. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

Oh, well they actually air up on the outer part of the rim. The design of the rim doesn't incoprporate the the TPS valve stem. I should have just banded them, but I asked when I ordered them if they could drill for TPS and they said yes. Anyway, pain in the arse overall. I'm still "discussing" a solution with them.

As I said, they don't air up on the inner, that's just for the TPS.

JK

leadfoot4 · 11-01-2005, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkonkle

Oh, well they actually air up on the outer part of the rim. The design of the rim doesn't incoprporate the the TPS valve stem. I should have just banded them, but I asked when I ordered them if they could drill for TPS and they said yes. Anyway, pain in the arse overall. I'm still "discussing" a solution with them.

As I said, they don't air up on the inner, that's just for the TPS.

JK

JK, I realize that you're not using that valve stem for airing. A wheel company, however, should know that the inside of a rim more than likely will have clearance issues, as your picture clearly indicates. Good luck with geting this straighteded out !!!

jkonkle · 11-02-2005, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leadfoot4

JK, I realize that you're not using that valve stem for airing. A wheel company, however, should know that the inside of a rim more than likely will have clearance issues, as your picture clearly indicates. Good luck with geting this straighteded out !!!

Gotcha, no offense intended - my bad. I'm getting it worked out - between wilma and sema - they have been swamp'd. I'm either going to go with Z06 offsets or take it out an inch, maybe 19/285's all the way around. Problem is I'll need to lower the front a little bit because the height will be up there with 19's. Might give me a chance to rotate for street rims.

JK