You would have heard a stone grinding into your wheel that would have made one HELL of a racket.

This was a manufacturing fault, a small crack/fault soon turns into a massive crack especially when there are the huge stresses involved such as on a wheel.

I would be livid if I were you and be looking for more than a new wheel, maybe a new set of better/different wheels.

This is a massive failing on the part of skoda.

Only just got round to reading all about this incident and although it's of little consolation now, I'm just glad that you were not hurt because of it.

Hope that you're continuing to fight your corner at the dealers and SUK, because if this is an OEM alloy, then no matter what damage was caused (irrespective of circumstance), this clearly should not have happened and needs to be investigated fully.

Tyres and wheels are our only bond with the road - if either or both components fail, then it's goodnight vienna!

don't take any crap from them shout and swear and empty their showroom if you have to but the stone thing is ******** you would have heard it. and it woulda been a huge stone.

Go into dealer and get the wheel & tyre right away. I doubt the junk is collected more than weekly.

If that is standard brakes and standard wheel, then if a stone can do that it's a design failure. Basically the dealer is bullsh*ting you and I would call their bluff. You have the photographs, take copies to a decent wheel dealer in your area and ask them have they ever seen owt like that and could a stone have done it.

I don't for a second believe them. I'm amazed SUK don't want to inspect such a failure to be certain it's a stone as if this started happening a lot they would get sued or have serious issues if they ignored a case such as yours.

It's your wheel..get it back...have it looked at...university mettalurgy departments may be one source of info and probably free.

There is a similiar story hear http://www.carkeys.co.uk/features/everything_else/5787.asp

Best of luck

Paul

You would have heard a stone grinding into your wheel that would have made one HELL of a racket.

Not as much as you might think, I managed to get a stone trapped in between the brake disc and disc guard on my Civic and it was inaudible at speed. It was only when I slowed down I could hear it.

This was a manufacturing fault, a small crack/fault soon turns into a massive crack especially when there are the huge stresses involved such as on a wheel.

A manufacturing fault, like a crack, will not have failed so uniformly. The structure of a alloy wheel is such that it would fail along the lines of the materials grainaular make up, which would be anything but straight.

I don't won't to upset the guy that has had the failure, but speaking as a HNC qualified engineer, who has done courses in mettalurgy, I'd be very surprised if there any kind of manufacturing fault that would cause such a failure.

Sorry.

I tend to disagree Martin i am afraid, the granular structure of the aluminum depending on the casting process could be so small that it would appear to be in a straight line, to get the zig zag effect you are hinting at would require very slow controlled cooling to produce larger grain form, which wont happen with mass produced alloy wheels, However, until more pictures are posted up about the mode of failure all we can do is speculate.

Thats fine, but then why is the car designed that a stone can get in and cause such a failure?

I mean how would a stone get trapped, wear the when and keep wearing through the body of the wheel without growing in size? I just don't see how it could do it without part wearing it then falling out.

EDIT: Just a thought but what if the casting was bad such that the structure was aero baring?

don't take any crap from them shout and swear and empty their showroom if you have to but the stone thing is ******** you would have heard it. and it woulda been a huge stone.

If you came into my dealership and started to abuse my staff I would have you arrested/removed end of story.

Dont be rude, dont shout, dont get agressive!

Be polite but firm, if you "wish" to push this further get legal advise first, let the dealership know you are contacting SUK and you are seeking legal advice.

At the end of the day it's only been a few days these things take time.

You could file a lawsuit against them or maybe even get a new vRS FOC.

The abuse of democracy at its peak? Like the woman who took huge gulp of hot coffee she ordered and sued McDonald's for it?

SHe poured it over her lap, and it wasn't just hot it was extreemly hot so it stayed warm longer.

Sure sueing for holding a cup of coffee between your legs while driving is stupid, but it wasn't as cut and dry as the myth makes out.

I had a cup from Costa one day, and only took a sip to test the temperature and burnt my mouth. It was well in excess of any other coffee I have ever had, so circumstances withstanding there has to be room for manouver.

I would have thought that buying a cup of coffee, or any hot drink for that matter, that you could reasonably expect it to be made with water at anywhere up to 100 degrees - i.e. Boiling!

Therefore in my mind it really is that cut and dry, if your stupid enough to burn yourself on something that you could reasonably expect to do so then hard luck, obviously the courts thought differently, that just shows what a ridiculous world we live in today.

My point was no she shouldn't have sued, but also that most coffee comes out at about 60 degrees and this stuff came out at 80.

Personally i would have said oi golden arches cool it or put a warning for stupid people on it. Woman you are stupid but Mac D's can pay some money to your medical insurance to cover it, (eg the couple of hundred it cost not some stupid amount).

Eg shut up the both of you, stop wasting the courts time.

My point was no she shouldn't have sued, but also that most coffee comes out at about 60 degrees and this stuff came out at 80.

Really? Coffee should be brewed/pressed at 92-98 Celsius - so black coffee should be higher than both those temperatures when it's served.

Mind you, it also shouldn't be served in a thermal cup with a plastic lid...

Rob.

And now we talk about coffee..

Times like this you wish you didn't mod!.Not they would cause it but maybe skoda may not be able to give you warranty cover on this as it states that any mods with cancel the warranty.

hope this is not the case.

Glad your ok

Thought he said car was standard :S

Not a fan of coffee anyway, but I find that in general places that serve flavoured water like Starbucks seem to be filled with pretentious tw*ts 99.9% of the time.

They seem to think they are in someway 'cool' cos they've seen it on an american sitcom! So a few scaldings here and there - no problem!!

I love the way threads can end up on a totally random subject!!

...but maybe skoda may not be able to give you warranty cover on this as it states that any mods with cancel the warranty[/b'].

It doesn't actually say that in black and white in the current or previous warranty terms. Read here.

Hi

Regarding the cause of the failure, if the wheel has been damaged by some unknown object cutting its way through the rim, you will probably see the outer surface of the wheel, at the outer surface of the failure a thin line of the face that looks kile it has been machined or cut, the surface subject to this will be a very uniform depth. It is unlikely that the object was very narrow and sharp, so this area at the top of the crack (on the outside surface) may be a small regular chamfer. Essentially, you are looking for missing material.

To those who said you would hear it, well possibly, but an object may only ned to be in there for a second at 70mph. The wheel will go round 17 times a second at this speed and if it is hard enough, the object will cut through the alloy quite easily considering the feed force and rate that could be applied in these conditions.

If it is a materials failure, you will see that the egdes will join together without lost material. There cound have been damage as you were stopping which would make this harder to ascertain, but you would not see a lost material condition on the outer surface (the dish of the wheel) where the seperation took place. If it was a crack, you would possibly have had pressure loss from the tyre as the fault developed. Lastly, a fault in material would quite possibly have allowed road salt in so corrosion on the seperated faces would be probable. At the very least, you would see areas where the suface shows the smooth regular nature of one which was never joined to anything else.

Without seeing the surfaces of the failure it is hard to say.

I did two years of in service component failure analysis in the automotive sector. Projects I contributed to included investigating two famous incidents, one industrialist in a Ferrri through a toll booth and one A Senna. You would be amazed at what can go wrong. Best bit of news here is of course that you are unhurt:thumbup:

Chris

PS before anyone starts on about it being rubbish that this could happen, I have seen a disc down to the venting vanes that sounded fine until the small bolt that had gone down the pad chamfer broke through to the vanes.

glad your ok and everything. I wont speculate on the whys or how its happened cos its not my field. What I would say is get the wheel back quick sharp before it disappears,after all if they have not given you a replacment then it is still yours. If they tell you its been disposed of then ask them to get it back and if they cant do that then perhaps they should give you another one. polite but firm and dont take any bull****. I would would think that for a few hundred pounds or whatever a new wheel costs they would help keep customer relations sweet.

ive got the wheel back today. ive sent skoda uk an email about the situation. i might give them a ring tomorrow.

Hope it goes well for you mate.

If nothing else i would want the piece of mind of knowing the reason for this and it being confirmed by a trained tech. Do keep us updated

Hi, can we have close up quality pics please of both sides? I'll refer them to a friend of mine who's a forensic engineer.

Cheers,

Jon.