What is the big deal about Fikse wheels?

bigrubberjeep · 04:49 PM

why the premium on these wheels? Why are so many Porsche owners loyal to this brand over any other?

reason for the question is that I was browsing thorugh a "Honda Tunner" mag and they had some ver nice wheels on some ads that I am sure would look decent on most 911's for a fraction of the price.

So what gives? I know Fikse wheels are not much safer then cast wheels from my reading on renlist and some disasterous events about bolts shreading off.

Wheight cant be it, they are not that much lighter then my Fuchs wheels, actually heavier

89911 · 05-31-2004, 04:41 PM

I thing the biggest reason Porsche guys like them is they are understated and seem to fit in well with the 911 design. This along with their lightness and durability. Show me any wheel and I'm sure there is a picture floating around of one cracked. Looking at how many cars use them for Racing could account for some failures.

klaucke · 05-31-2004, 04:50 PM

Those rims you see in the Honda Tuner magazine, I would have to think they don't come in 5x130 bolt pattern. The tire store near me can't get ANY wheels for my car, I know because I wanted to buy a steel spare.

chrisp · 05-31-2004, 04:54 PM

There's a pretty limited offering on the market for Porsche fitments. I think HRE, Forgeline, BBS, Fikse, OEM stock wheels, and maybe one or two others are all thats available. Prices are all similar. Wouldn't a set of Volk magnesium wheels be nice (13-14lbs whereas my Fikse's are 18-19 each)? I don't think their tooling can provide a slug to make our offset. They have them for the newer 911's but not the pre-ABS cars.

bigrubberjeep · 05-31-2004, 06:10 PM

You would think that bolt pattern and offset for Porsche's would be at the top of the list of options for other wheel makers that see the wheel market for Porsche's owned by high priced wheels way beyond the $300 per wheel range.

ZAMIRZ · ZAMIRZ's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by bigrubberjeep
You would think that bolt pattern and offset for Porsche's would be at the top of the list of options for other wheel makers that see the wheel market for Porsche's owned by high priced wheels way beyond the $300 per wheel range.

$300/wheel is going to get you some junk cast wheel that weighs a lot more than a Fuch wheel and hurts the performance of the car. Most Porsche owners are smarter than your average pimple faced 16 year old who wants to put 19s on his RSX and look cool in front of his buddies regardless of how bad it is for his car.

bigrubberjeep · 05-31-2004, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ZAMIRZ
$300/wheel is going to get you some junk cast wheel that weighs a lot more than a Fuch wheel and hurts the performance of the car. Most Porsche owners are smarter than your average pimple faced 16 year old who wants to put 19s on his RSX and look cool in front of his buddies regardless of how bad it is for his car.

Wow, your lobbying some heavy stuff there with those "assumptions".

In any case, I guess I am better off inquiring with the manufactureres for some specs (including weight)

Lukesportsman · 05-31-2004, 07:01 PM

BRJ:

I agree with you, and the above entry on VOLK's. That would be my rim of choice if we could get them. There are other brands making Forged racing rims to racing specs that do not offer them for us. I agree that we would seem to be a reasonable sized market to attack. Seems that any multi part rim could be drilled for us, but when did logic equal reality?

Last time I checked Mazda produced some of the lightest rims going and are raced. They obviously don't cost the same as Fiskes or HRE's so for NON RACING use others than Porsche have mastered the light weight rim.

bigrubberjeep · 05-31-2004, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lukesportsman
BRJ:

I agree with you, and the above entry on VOLK's. That would be my rim of choice if we could get them. There are other brands making Forged racing rims to racing specs that do not offer them for us. I agree that we would seem to be a reasonable sized market to attack. Seems that any multi part rim could be drilled for us, but when did logic equal reality?

Last time I checked Mazda produced some of the lightest rims going and are raced. They obviously don't cost the same as Fiskes or HRE's so for NON RACING use others than Porsche have mastered the light weight rim.

Exacly - Those (non-Porsche) cars with less torque probably are concerned about weight with more reason then us.

maxnine11 · maxnine11's Garage

Volk's are available in the 5x130 bolt pattern, but i think only in offsets for a 993. IIRC, about $2900 a set. (forged, not mg)
max

Jack Olsen · 05-31-2004, 08:54 PM

So many Porsches are rolling on Fuchs, too. It's a very hard wheel to improve on.

maxnine11 · maxnine11's Garage

Check out the ads in an issue of Excellence. I think there is quite a variety of wheels available in the Porsche 5x130 bolt pattern, but in fitments/offsets for the 996 and Boxsters. The owner/leasee of these cars are more their target customer than the average vintage, air-cooled 911 owner.
If you spent a day or two at a place like Wheel Enhancement, you'd be amazed at the number of 3-$5000 wheel/tire packages going out the door. (I was only there for two tires and four wheels/tires balanced...and still only had enough money left over for del Taco on the way home

)

max

Eric Coffey · 05-31-2004, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bigrubberjeep
why the premium on these wheels? Why are so many Porsche owners loyal to this brand over any other?

reason for the question is that I was browsing thorugh a "Honda Tunner" mag and they had some ver nice wheels on some ads that I am sure would look decent on most 911's for a fraction of the price.

So what gives? I know Fikse wheels are not much safer then cast wheels from my reading on renlist and some disasterous events about bolts shreading off.

Wheight cant be it, they are not that much lighter then my Fuchs wheels, actually heavier

I think the bigger question you should be asking yourself is:
"what was I doing browsing through a "Honda Tuner" mag in the first place?"

Seriously, why the premium on these wheels you ask? I would guess because A, they are not cheap 1-piece sand/gravity cast ricer wheels. And B, they are state-of-the-industry, 3-piece modular, endurance-race-proven, forged aluminum wheels. Plus, they just look damn cool! I especially like how they are constructed to hide the modular bolts.
Also, I bet if you price the top-of-the-line BBS modulars, they will be right there in the same price range, if not higher. Just my $.02.

bigrubberjeep · 05-31-2004, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JackOlsen
So many Porsches are rolling on Fuchs, too. It's a very hard wheel to improve on.

I am SURE there is room for imporvement on the PRICE, however if we chose to just accept it and then also justify it, then they will never lower it.

Also and probably mor importantly, SAFETY improvements, have you seen the thread on Rennlist.com of MULTIPLE FIKSE wheels falling apart? What gives there? For the price I would expect an almost perfect peice of metal. The fact the bolts can shear off makes them (to me) a huge no-no

nostatic · nostatic's Garage

light, cheap, strong. Pick any two.

And the more you lean towards any one extreme, the more the others suffer.

IROC · IROC's Garage

The part I don't understand is why these things (wheels in general) have gotten so expensive. I bought my HRE Fuchs replicas almost exactly 7 years ago and paid right around $400 each (8x16s and 9x17s). At the time I thought that was highway robbery, but now they are $700+ each.

I'd love a set of Kinesis wheels, but I'm afraid to hear what they cost.

Mike

Schrup · Schrup's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by IROC
I'd love a set of Kinesis wheels, but I'm afraid to hear what they cost.Mike

Anyone know the difference between Kinesis & Fikse? I am looking toward the Kinesis because they offer custom colors, & I want to stay with the Weissach color scheme.

jpachard · 05:17 AM

There are several reasons for the price increase:
1 Aluminium is becoming more expensive.
2 Labor/machining is going up in price
3 Lawyers, ie lawsuits etc. and the insurance these companies have to carry in order to protect themselves from some yahoo who wants to sue them because he crashed and has decided that the wheel was to blame. Having just started my own business, the last insurance quote I got to cover me would run 45k a year!!

Kinesis and Fikse are totally different companies. Kinesis has much better customer support although from recent experiences from some racing buddies show that they(Fikse) are fixing this.

Cheers, James

tholyoak · 06-01-2004, 04:47 AM

I have heard a lot about Fikse's poor customer service. This was not my experience this spring when I returned a wheel for repair. Fast service, called as soon as the wheel arrived and was inspected. Heck I even forgot to remove the center cap and it wasn't returned with the repaired wheel so they sent me a set of 4 for free.
If it was poor before, it looks like they have improved upon their service.

Todd

89911 · 05:25 AM

Like I said before, take everything you hear with a grain of salt, especially on the internet. I have 2 set of them with zero problems. When I first got mine, the front wheel wouldn't seat completely because of the wheel bearing cap protruding. I called and they sent me a bunch of deeper spaced caps. Little did I realize I just needed to tap the dust cap in further to get it to fit. If you don't like the price or what you hear about them, don't buy them. Unsubstantiated internet babble about them failing is another thing. As repeated, I'm sure there is a picture of a wheel made be any manufacturer that has cracked. There a plenty of ones that have fuchs cracking and I'm not ready to get rid of mine.