4 Vital Things Only Car Enthusiasts Know About Wheels

1 Front-Wheel Drive Has Its Place

While many luxury car owners would turn up their nose and lose interest if a front-wheel drive car is brought up in conversation, many a car enthusiast would keep listening. Why? Front-wheel drive vehicles have one redeeming feature when it comes to performance: they teach you how to drive.

How is this possible, you may say, when they are known for chronic understeer, lack of road grip at speed and generally lackluster performance? It is precisely because of these generally-considered flaws that front wheel drive cars give a driver such a good grounding (ha!) in vehicle control.

This is especially true in the snowy mountain climes of Utah and the Salt Lake Valley. Anyone who’s braved the wilds of Beaver Pass during a snowstorm can attest to the importance of a cool head and a decent clutch of motor skills. There is no better way to learn these than through the seemingly uncontrollable performance flaws of a front-wheel drive car.

For example, once you’ve driven through snow or an oil slick or hydroplaned and used the opportunity to have a good, purposeful slide around in a Toyota Corolla, you’ll learn a thing or too about the principles behind hand-brake turns, vehicle weight distribution, and what power distribution to each wheel looks like in practice. 

Sure, you can learn a lot of that stuff on a webpage or in a book, but to actually acquire these as real-world skills, the only way to learn is through throwing a front-wheel drive car around in less than ideal conditions. You can then transfer this applied knowledge to a rear-wheel drive sports car and feel way more confident in your handling skills because you understand on a practical level the principles behind your vehicle, its wheels and their joint interaction with a road surface.

2 Car Manufacturers Generally Don’t Make Their Car’s Wheels

While it might seem a little strange (after all, aren’t the wheels the thing that make the difference between a car and tiny house?), car manufacturers generally farm the manufacturing of their wheels out to a specialist company. 

One of the major wheel manufacturers is Maxion Wheels, who supply OEM wheels for car companies like Audi, BMW, General Motors, and others. Maxion can trace their history back to 1908 with the creation and manufacture of the wooden-spoke wheels used on the original Ford Model T, which is rather cool. There are many other companies who specialize in producing custom wheels, replica wheels, and aftermarket wheels, with American Racing Equipment being the oldest and one of the most popular manufacturers of these.

This outsourcing of such an integral vehicle part allows these car manufacturers to focus on their strengths - the inner workings of, in some cases, highly-tuned performance vehicles.

3 Rims Are Not The Same As Wheels

If you’ve talked at length with anyone about cars, you’ve probably heard someone refer to wheels as ‘rims’. While most people will certainly know what they’re referring to, rims are actually not the same as wheels (nerd alert!).

Technically, the rim is the outer circle of the wheel (the rim, if you will), the spokes attach to the rim and lead to a central hub. This combination of rim, spokes and hub together constitute a wheel. So if you hear someone talking about getting their rims painted, what they mean and what they’re actually saying are two different things!

4 Knowing That Wheel Repair Is a Thing Can Literally Save You Thousands

Okay, this may sound like a bit of a plug for Salt City Wheels. And okay - it kind of is. But it’s also a reality that most people don’t know that a cracked, bent, pot-hole or rock damaged wheel can potentially be repaired back to its original level of performance. Depending on its performance level, a replacement wheel can easily run you several hundreds of dollars per unit. Repairing the original wheel will cost you a fraction of that.

The challenge is finding a wheel repair company that truly and consistently know what they’re doing. Wheels are too important to the safety and performance of a vehicle to be messing about with them without comprehensive knowledge and experience. 

Salt City Wheels are Utah and Salt Lake City’s premier wheel repair service and our customers consistently vote us number one on Yelp and Google Reviews for a reason - our repair crew are highly trained and experienced, and all are board-certified car nerds, meaning we will not allow your car to leave our sight in anything less than tippetty-top condition.

And best of all, our service is 100% mobile, meaning there’s no need for your poor, beleaguered car to limp unceremoniously across town to a static repair shop - we will bring all our repair magic directly to your door.

If you need a wheel repaired, refinished or repainted, give the Salt Lake City experts a call today at 801 425 3044.