I don't need to see what other people say about it. My friend's Jeep had it happen in November and when you see something with your own eyes, it's much more powerful than anything anyone can say over the Internet.

 

The aluminum wheel that cracked came with the rig. I think it came from the factory that way because you see a lot of 89-91 Suburbans with those wheels. The spare was a stock steel wheel.


My rig has never been off-roaded and it looked like a pavement queen when we got it in 2001 (10yo). It still had passenger car tires on it.


Our local county roads are pretty bad and yes, sometimes the Burb gets a bit of load in it - just like the many pickups I had previously. Never had a steel wheel fail and now I have three aluminum ones sitting out by the garage that I won't use for anything but spare spares.


The XJ has aluminum ("lace") wheels and they will probably do all right considering the less weight. But if I ever get different wheels, they will be steel


I would probably go with junkyard factory steel jeep wheels if I could find them rather than the China made.

 

While I do agree with everything your saying, and I personally prefer steel wheels for these kinds of rigs, there are plenty of aluminum wheels that can and do hold up to the abuse. Hundreds of thousands of rigs run H2 alloys, many rock bouncers/ultra4 type cars/buggies run Allied beadlocked wheels, and many of the hardcore desert guys run Method or Walker Evans wheels.

IMO, it has more to do with the quality of the wheel than the material. There's ****ty and defective alloy wheels just as there's ****ty defective steel wheels. Most guys won't run into any wheel related problems, so alloy vs steel is usually a non-issue.

I consider a wheel a disposable item. If you break one, oh well, replace it. Steel is cheaper, therefore I prefer it.

 

I appreciate your well-balanced argument.

I personally prefer steel, like you, and will continue to use steel for its many benefits.

 

Hey guys. So I called 4 Wheel Parts after reading xjmarc's post and sure enough they are on backorder, for 3 to 4 weeks so... canceled that order and went with the JEGS 15x8 steel d window. Got them in (along with new lug nuts, and center caps) and they look great! I'm having them installed tomorrow but, I have a question. Since these wheels are lug centric I know I need to properly torque them and what not, but are the stock wheel/lug studs plenty capable of carrying this new load? I am just skeptical even though there are soooo much other people running them without a problem. Anyone have any experience with these or this concept?

 

I run hubcentric and very much prefer it. You can get rings that will make up that gap on lugcentric wheels.
One random issue when switching to steelies is they are thinner and the lugs were not threaded enough to hold wheel. Steelies also do not have the conical seat for the lug-nuts.

 

Forgot to mention I did get a set of hubcentric rings, it's just that I cannot use them with my center caps. It's either the caps or the rings. Also, the d windows I got have the conical seat in them.

 

Good to hear yours have conical seats.
So the rings would have to be machined thinner to fit with the caps I guess. When I did not have center caps I used vinyl adhesive sheets of imitation carbon fiber, cut into circles. Looked good and lasted couple years.

 

Lol nice! So you have run lug centric steelies before? Other than what you said already, you think they'll be fine? lol I just need some reassurance here. I know tons and tons of other people run the same setup

 

double post

 

I ran lugcentic D-windows with 33" swampers and 4.88 gears. Jumped it (in sand) and all that fun stuff, did not have a problem.

 

So are these trailmaster wheels worth buying?

 

Yes, at that price you can't lose. And this is from a guy who is a total brand name wheel *****

The Volks on my RX-8 are worth more than my XJ

 

They are probably made in the same factory as pro comp and cragar

 

bingo!!