I held off on posting this for a few months until the "final decision" from the manufacturer was reached.

Ordered new Bogart floyd GTs last November. My wife gave me tires for Christmas, and I went to have them mounted the day after. The fronts were great, but the wheel installer called me over to show me the rears. Both wheels had a TON of run-out. After back and forth discussions and Bogart/SJM blaming the tire installer, they agreed to have them "evaluated." Shipped the rear wheels to Bogart, on my dime, and received them back about a month later. Took them to a local Lexus dealership, where a pal is the service manager, and put both wheels on the balancer without tires. One wheel looked good, while the other looked like crap. One wheel took 32, yes 32, 1/4 oz weights to balance with MT et radials. I had three other car buds there, and all were very unimpressed with the high dollar wheels I had purchased. One took a video to show the run-out of the wheel. I'll try to get him to post it. The other wheel was again sent back to Bogart.

Got a call from Rich Bogart. Spent 15 min telling me that the wheel was perfect, with only .035 run-out, and was as good as it could possibly be. I didn't argue, and simply asked him if the wheel met the quality standards of a Bogart wheel. He said yes. I told him I didn't feel comfortable putting these wheels on my car, especially in light of what they cost. I will again take a vid of the wheel on a balancer once it arrives.

If I had to do it over again, I'd buy Welds, and get my small angle grinder and go to work on the calipers.

Very dissapointed.

 

Well, i was one of the people present, when this one Bogart wheel was on the balancer. The run out was 1/4", which easy math is .25, not .035, big difference. How can that be a quality product that demands the $$ along with? I would not be happy. The other wheel was very true and had not the extreme issues the other one, with one exception wheel weights. I would be worried about the structural integrity of the wheels, what happens when this car gets launched at 4000 rpms, will the wheel go out of true even more. The Lexus tech that verified these wheels said that he would not use the bad wheel on his own personal car. I cant believe a company like Bogart would not just exchange the wheel for one that has been measured by there own people. What is happening in today's day and age, customer satisfaction is no longer the focus.

JB i feel sorry that Hard earned dollars dont represent a worthy product.

On a separate note, the wheels themselves were beautiful and were extremely light.

 

Hey man. Yeah, they look like a million bucks. They are very light.

I wish they were uglier, heavier, and had no run-out. I also wish I had my $1.5 K back.

 

please use the proper forum, we provide a feedback forum for a reason.

Balancing is 9 times out of 10 a fault of tires, not wheels. Did you check the balance on the rim itself first?

 

Thanks for the relocation.

Yes. Wheels were checked w/o tires.

 

There are a few misconceptions stated. I’ll elaborate since this was brought up publically.

We need to clarify a very important statement… wheels SHOULD NOT be mounted where damage many times easily occurs...THEN a customer comes back and states that their wheel has a manufacture defect. After all, how can we tell if a wheel actually did have excessive runnout OR was it bent during tire mounting! This is why returns are not acceptable once a tire is mounted for ALL wheel manufactures!!

Do you purchase a camshaft, install it on the car, then notice now there is something wrong with it…THEN go back to the manufacture and say “the camshaft was not within tolerance”?? I want you to pay for shipping costs to/from my place and repair/replace the camshaft??

There are VERY few if any manufactures that would even consider a repair once a customer mounts a tire. Summit Racing for example won’t even accept a return on a mounted wheel. Why? Wheels are easily damaged by tire machines which place tremendous pressure on the wheel to mount the tire. Even so called “touchless” machines place a vast amount of pressure on the wheel. Did you ever try to mount a tire without a machine; it can be very difficult if not impossible especially if a radial tire is used.

I feel we went far customer satisfaction whereas accepted back the wheel for review. Upon inspection, there were many new marks on the wheels. Tire-mounting machine marks on the wheels were obvious to the point of you could see the material deformed where the machine held it in place. The damages were so obvious BUT we still repaired one of the wheels and dissembled and replaced components on the other at OUR cost. We even picked up return shipping to the customer. It was an obvious NON-warranty issue. On hindsight, we should have charged the customer and the customer go after the tire installer for the damages resulted.

On a side note, warranty work does not mean a manufacture pays shipping costs. When you purchase a product, an item can be warranted and repaired at the manufactures cost…BUT the manufacture is not responsible for shipping costs. This is standard practice across all industries!

Balancing… Tires are not balanced nor any wheels balanced separately. If a tire is installed on a wheel in-phase with the “heavy spots”, a larger amount of weight will be needed to balance it. The solution would be to rotate the tire 180 degrees to less the effect of weights necessary.

Regarding tolerance, wheels are not shipped to customers unless they meet specifications. Though the tolerance number is small, it can be seen by the naked eye.

We went an extra step with our customer. He had asked for us to revisit one of the wheels thinking they were still not “ok”. Without hesitation, we obliged. Once again, we are not responsible for shipping costs of a wheel BUT we STILL paid shipping costs for the return. Upon inspection of the wheel, the wheel was verified to be within tolerance. We would not lie to a customer or if the wheel was in-hand not repair the wheel if it did not meet spec. There would be absolutely no reason for this. What gain would we see?? If the wheel needed to be repaired/replaced, it would have been taken care of.

No wheel is perfectly true. When you build a wheel with multiple components, it must be within a tolerance for suitability. We do ensure that wheels which are shipped meet these criteria when it leaves the door. This is the case for all wheel manufactures.

We cannot satisfy every customer. It is unfortunate that this customer felt unhappy after we went absolutely far and beyond our responsibilities taking it upon ourselves to attempt to rectify a situation that was not a result of our doing!

 

My mistake was assuming a $1.5k set of wheels didn't need to be checked for tolerance before mouting tires on them. What is unfair is a vendor placing blame first on UPS, then the tire shop that I have done business with for over nine years that does great work. These guys mount everything up to 24" chrome wheels, and have the most state of the art equipment.

Absoultely no way the wheels weren't perfect, eh? Let's blame Mother's polish and extensive polishing as the real cause of the tolerance issue.

I've spent alot of money on this car. Many products have met my expectaions. Several products did not. This product did not.

 

You can spend easily 1000.00 on many engine components as well...does that mean you shouldn't check to make sure they are ok before you install it?

The vendor meaning us commented that possibly the tire guy mounting the tires or UPS could have been to blame for your wheels being damaged. We really don’t know since you mounted them and THEN checked things.

When they leave the shop, they are evaluated and verified. We have no control over what UPS or your tire mounting person does to them. THIS is the reason why EVERY wheel manufacture does NOT accept a wheel back for warranty work when you mount tires!

It was so completely evident the damage that was viewed on the wheels was a DIRECT result of your first tire installer! We STILL took care of it and didn't charge you!

During discussion with you, apparently you changed to a different tire installer? Why did you change and use a different tire company the second time you mounted your wheels?

We've gone far and above to meet your satisfaction. My biggest mistake was that we shouldn't have taken the wheel back as every other wheel manufacture or vendor does. If you purchased your wheels from summit as the above example, you'd have the wheels still sitting in your house as they would not have accepted them as a return or exchange.

There is no sense in arguing this further. We bent over backwards for you even though we did not damage the wheels nor did they leave the facilities as they were returned to us the first time yet we still took care of this situation for you. You once again did not feel that one of the wheels met your expectations so it was re-evaluated again. If the wheel needed repaired, it would have been taken care of. We would have NO reason for US to pay your shipping charges a SECOND time for the wheel returned to you and send it back to you in poor shape.