Hi Gang,

I am very new to this community.

I have an Octavia 1.9 TDI (Turbo diesel)

recently installed alloys from korean manufacturer League alloys.

But after installing the alloys I experience a wobble in the steering at around

120 km/hr onwards. While installing the alloys the wheels are balanced and got

the wheel alignment done aswell.

According to the skoda dealers it si because of the imprefection in the alloys.

Any ideas OR suggestions on what could be wrong ? What I need to do ?

Kind regards

Sounds like they weren't balanced very well.

Either that or one of the tyres is deformed. This doesnt allways show up when balanced.

Had this on prev Golf......deformed alloy. I'd get back onto the seller and get them to identify the defective wheel and replace forth'bloody'with.

Thank you guys !

I will check both the tyres and the alloys.

I am sure that they were balanced, I will check it again.

How to recognize the deformed alloy ?

Also forgot to tell that,

same set of tyres run really well with the stock steel rims on

Wheels can be balanced to near perfection on a balancing machine yet still cause problems when fitted to a car. I would suspect the new wheels in this case.

I would have to agree with everyone that sounds like a balance issue, i had a set of 18" alloys made from OZ on my astra SRI and at about 80 they had a wobble , went back ad got them re balanced and they were fine.

Thank you guys !

I will check both the tyres and the alloys.

I am sure that they were balanced' date=' I will check it again.

How to recognize the deformed alloy ?[/quote']

Take it to a tyre company, get them to put it on the balancer & spin it fairly slowly, watch the way the wheel runs to see if its true, it will be more noticable on the inside, especially if its dented, watch the rim not the tyre.

NOTIFY the supplier you have a potential problem now, its fairly easy to knock the cheaper alloys out of shape on potholes etc & the manufacturers are ware of this & are unlikely to change them if youve had them for a while. I had some Woolfrace wheels & they were useless, buckled 4 in the end, got fed up with replacing then & bought a different make.

I checked the wheel and tyres both of them don't seem to have any problems.

But found an interesting aspect about not all alloys fit directly on the Octavia !

It seems some of the alloys need a minor modification, where the tyre shop claims

they have done such modifications to both Skoda & Mercs. This modification Technically

I am not completely aware. But the summary of it is the aftermarket alloys need an additional

ring to be placed at the center of the hub and the locals here are terming it as a SPACER.

I heard the modification is necessary to correctly support the alloys on some cars.

Currently I have taken the alloys off and put the standard rims. Don't have enough

confindence yet to do such modifications.

I sincerely appreciate all the help I got.

Hope to be an active member in this community.

Thanks for the reply and all the help

Agreed most alloys require the extra ring but it should have been supplied with the wheels, basically it centres the wheel on the hub. It enables manufacturers to make a wheel fit more than one car & therefore keep costs down

I suggest you contact who ever supplied the wheels & ask them to provide it, if they wont/cant then the wheels arent suitable for your car & they should refund your money.

Im away for Briskoda for over a week but if you need to contact me call 07799 623693

Stuart

Had this prob on one of my old Corrados. Got the wheels re-balanced, but the prob was still there. Eventually found that the wheels had the wrong spiggot rings. This is basically what Stuart J was talking about above. Usually made of plastic, and fit around the hub to make sure the wheels are completely flush. If there is even a 1 mm gap, you'll get wheel wobble. The place where you got them from should have supplied you with a set of Skoda specific spiggot rings with the wheels- give them a call.

If these don't work, one of the wheels must be damaged- probably buckled underneath one of the tyres somewhere so you can't see it.

It's nothing to do with spacers! Spacers are just discs that fit onto the face of the hub, between hub and wheel to extend the hub, thus pushing the wheel track out wider into the arches. You only require spacers if you're fitting bigger wheels with a different offset to stop them rubbing in the arches.

Hope you get this sorted!

I wish a very happy new year ahead for everyone in the community.

Okay ... I will check with the wheel supplier to see if they have the SKODA specific

rings for the alloys.

What are the other things I might have to look out for ? Are the alloys safe to put on ?

I found quite a bit of difference in the handling part after putting the alloys. Suspension doesn't seem to be as responsive as it was with the steel rims. I suppose this has to something with the weight factor for the standard rims versus alloys ?

Thanks Staurt for the info on the rings & Andy for the term "Spiggot Rings",

It helps me get more info on these, and I feel is a crucial component in an aftermarket alloy.

Nagki

Looking at your post it could simply be that your wheel nuts are either not at the correct toprque and have not been tightened in sequence. If the spigot ring is the wrong size, ie too big (to small and the wheels won't go on) I doubt if it will have any effect :confused: . (my TVR has no spigot rings)! The spigot ring is to locate the wheel whilst tightening up the wheel nuts/studs. Once the nuts/studs are tight it is the taper on the nut that locates the wheel against the taper on the wheel. I assume your wheels came with new nuts/studs(not sure what your car has), if not you could have a mis-match on the taper. If the nuts/studs are the correct ones for your wheel then I would take the wheels off, clean the wheel to hub face, put wheels back on and tighten up in the correct sequence to locate the wheel true to the hub, first by nipping them up and them torquing them up.

Hope this helps

It could be that aswell,

The shop which sold me the alloys didn't really have the right kind of nuts/bolts for the

wheels. And Proper power tools cannot be used due to the odd nuts and unreachability

of the power tools with the new alloy.

Everytime I have fitted the alloys I have seen the Tyre shop struggling fitting the

wheel on the hub. I am not sure if they got a chance to apply the right

amount of torque etc...

I have gotten multiple people telling me now that it could be spiggot rings,

for the time being I want to use the Standard rims and troubleshoot on the alloys

may be during next six months. The biggest trouble here in India is I haven't got the right technicians whom I can trust to do a lot of experimentation :-( .

Skoda technicians normally swear by Skoda alloys which are usually thrice as expensive in this part of the world.

I have already removed alloys and put standard steel rims three times now !!

Not a very happy way to trobleshoot.... :-)

Thanks for all the help

Cheerio

Kiran