Where to buy locator/spigot rings for 17" rims in Perth

[sschen]

There's nothing fancy about alloy hub centric rings (this is the correct term for what you need).

You've been given a link on eBay where to buy them. Or you might try searching on google.

Here's another eBay for $27 a set in metal. bargain!

Tempe Tyres do mail order & will have them.
Ebay
Amazon
Aliexpress
1010 tyres
tirerack
Precision European Motorwerks
Autotechnik

You supplied the rims to the tyre shop didn't you?
Unless you specifically told them that they need to research & supply the hub rings for you then it's not their responsibility to supply hub rings. The vendor of the wheels should have supplied them as part of the wheel package.

They are easy to fit.

I also bet you could remove some of the wobble by loosening the wheel bolts & torquing them in sequence so that the chamfers seat properly. Go 90,100,110,120Nm on nuts 1,3,2,4

Has it occured to you that maybe they are just crap wheels?

edit: another point. Are your wheel bolts the correct type for the wheels? VW have angled chamfers bolts but some wheels are ball seat - just a thought.

Thanks for this post. I am slowly learning new terminology because of this thread.

A couple of ebay links you guys listed don't seem to work perhaps because the ebay links have expired? In any case, on another "search" link provided by kaanage, there is another Australian seller that sells a set of 4 73.1 to 57.1 aluminium alloy hub centric rings for only $29.99, link here. Considering the australian sellers seem to be selling the plastic ones in the low twenties posted to me, I might as well get the metal ones for a few dollars more. But I will wait till next Monday to see what Lenso Sydney can do for me. If they are going to charge me an arm and a leg just to post me the plastic ones, I will get them off ebay myself. I think it is highly unlikely that they will post them to me for free.

Your last point about the nuts/bolts worries me a little now. This is because my rims didn't come with nuts and bolts so the tyre place used the existing ones from my stock 16" rims. As you guys can tell by now, I really am a noob/newbie to all of this. Is there any easy way for me to check this without having to remove the wheels?? If not, I will have to worry about this when I bring the car back to the tyre place to do the proper wheel alignment once I have the hub centric rings.

[kaanage]

You supplied the rims to the tyre shop didn't you?
Unless you specifically told them that they need to research & supply the hub rings for you then it's not their responsibility to supply hub rings. The vendor of the wheels should have supplied them as part of the wheel package.

While it's true that the tyre store shouldn't be expected to supply the rings, they should have contacted the OP about them being needed since he did ask to be contacted if there were any issues.

Has it occured to you that maybe they are just crap wheels?

I this day and age, I seriously doubt wheels could be made so badly they would vibrate if the balance and fitting was done properly. A crap wheel will crack or leak.

edit: another point. Are your wheel bolts the correct type for the wheels? VW have angled chamfers bolts but some wheels are ball seat - just a thought.

Actually, it's the other way around - VW wheels and bolts are ball seat and almost all aftermarket wheels have a 60 degree V taper (cone) seat. But good point and another thing the store should have contacted the OP about.

Give him a break - it's obvious he's new to this while we've both been associated with the industry in various ways for years/decades

[brad]

Give him a break - it's obvious he's new to this while we've both been associated with the industry in various ways for years/decades

The bit I was annoyed about was that he was blaming the tyre shop whereas the rim supplier (who has made the mistake) has been "eager to help" but ultimately did nothing to help.

You would not believe how many people I've told "your current set up may cause issues. You need part X" (or whatever) and they know better. You get to a point where you just let it go because it's a waste of breath.

[TDIfan]

Bad timing mate, I just sold a set of 73 - 57.1 hub ring last month
But as discussed above these things are easy to find on the internet

Give me a shout if you need any help
I have tools to check wheel bolts and put the hub rings on when you have them

[sschen]

Bad timing mate, I just sold a set of 73 - 57.1 hub ring last month
But as discussed above these things are easy to find on the internet

Give me a shout if you need any help
I have tools to check wheel bolts and put the hub rings on when you have them

Thanks very much for the offer. I will let you know if I have to take up your offer once I got my hands on those hub rings.

I don't suppose you know of any local shops that sell them?

Unfortunately I didn't hear back from Lenso Sydney today at all I probably will buy the metal/alloy hub rings from one of the Australian ebay sellers later tonight if I don't hear back from any local WA guys that know where I can get them locally.

[brad]

Why has the wheel vendor abandoned you? Have you tried a tyre place that sells lots of wheels?

Here you go. My local tyre shop.

Hub Rings 73.1 - 57.1 | Accessories | Tempe Tyres

ebay
HUB Centric Rings OD 73 1mm ID 57 1mm Aluminium Alloy | eBay

Precise CBL Wheels HUB Centric Rings OD 73 1 TO ID 57 1 Audi Volkswagen Skoda VW | eBay

[sschen]

Why has the wheel vendor abandoned you? Have you tried a tyre place that sells lots of wheels?

Here you go. My local tyre shop.

Hub Rings 73.1 - 57.1 | Accessories | Tempe Tyres

ebay
HUB Centric Rings OD 73 1mm ID 57 1mm Aluminium Alloy | eBay

Precise CBL Wheels HUB Centric Rings OD 73 1 TO ID 57 1 Audi Volkswagen Skoda VW | eBay

I will give a bit more background on why I feel this issue isn't the fault of the seller that sold me the rims.

I bought the rims off a "tyre place" that was offloading all their rims via gumtree. Their gumtree listing does state that I have to do my own research etc and that it doesn't come with nuts etc. I don't blame them because it is partially my fault for not doing enough research. I did enough research to know that I needed my rims to be 5x100 17x7 up to 17x8 based on the tyre thread here and a few other australian tyre/rim websites that list what suitable size rims are suitable for my car etc. But the guy who sold me the rims certainly didn't know about the existence of hub centric rings till I called him about it last week. He said they have sold 80+ sets of rims and I am the first guy to call them about it. He indicated most other buyers let the tyre place takes care of the rest. He was helpful in the sense that he was patient to hear about my problems and he even called Lenso in Sydney to explain my problem to them. He also said they were meant to get back to him with a quote. He also spent more time researching it online and he also told me he called another tyre/rim place nearby to discuss this. We exchanged phone calls several times (easily 15+ minutes in total) on the day and at no time do I feel he was trying to fob me off. Towards the end, I got curious about why he doesn't know about the hub centric rings when their shop is a tyre shop with shop name of "XXX Tyres". He said that they are actually a tyre shop for commercial trucks! But they also onsell rims to local wheel/tyre retailers!

If you go back to read my first post, you will find that I gave two reasons why I feel the tyre shop is more at fault. IMHO, no professional tyre place who cares about quality of their workmanship should fit the rims and tyres knowing that the lack of hub centric rings will or may cause vibrations on the steering wheels. Like I said, when I called back to ask if he will rectify the problem, he certainly does not sound very keen at all to help. Why did he tell me that I "may" experience vibration and that it will just be an annoyance. Isn't this much further from the truth? And then there is the issue of timing, he is telling me all this when I had already handed over my credit card to pay!! Why didn't he call me when he first noticed the problem? I understand that you may have came across customers that won't listen to you when you have identified problems to them. But this guy certainly came across as wanting to just get the work done quickly so he can move on to the next sales, irrespective of the poor quality of the work he is doing.

FYI, I have bought a set of hub centric rings off ebay late on Monday night because I haven't had any response on where I can buy them locally in Perth. In addition, I also sent Lenso Sydney an email last Sunday night explaining that I need a set of hub centric rings for my car. I was hoping they will either call or email me during the day on Monday but sadly I haven't heard back from them at all over the last two days. Maybe they just don't care either??? If your reference to wheel vendor was the main distributor (in this case Lenso in Sydney), then I agree that their lack of response over the last two days does seem to indicate they have abandoned me.

Since I now have to wait for the hub centric rings to arrive, I would love to know a bit more about the nuts/bolts issue that you raised. Is it also possible the original nuts used to fit the rims may also be a cause that contributes to the vibrations on the steering wheel. Does anyone know if the original 2007 Polo GTi wheel nuts are the tapered type or the ball seat type? If I have the wrong type of nuts on my wheel at the moment, where can I go to get reliable info on what size and wheel nuts type to get for my car and rim? I might have to just give Lenso Sydney a call directly and ask them?

[brad]

I'd suggest you pick up the phone and I would complain to Lenso HQ (who is probably 1 man in a garden shed) that his sales agent don't know what they are doing. Ask them about the hub rings & ask them what seat they machine their wheels with.

As I was corrected on earlier, VWs are ball seat & there are also taper seat. Google is really helpful with this.

Std VW ball seat


Taper seat


Your vendor should be able to tell you what type of seat you wheels have. If he can't then I'm glad he doesn't sell baby food & poison.

Re: the price, I hope it was way less than $175/wheel because my local guy sell all his 17x7 Lenso at that price.

Your tyre dealer sounds like a funny fish - maybe he was peeved he didn't get the wheel sale? Maybe he simply didn't want to get involved with your wheels? After all, he's completed his part of the contract of fitting tyres to your wheels but if he starts selling you hub rings, etc then he's buying into your problems with the original vendor who didn't sell you a complete package. A lot of businesses refuse to deal with parts they haven't supplied - eg: The exhaust place near my work refuses to fit anything that comes from eBay - they still have a busy shop.

I venture that a substantial number of cars with aftermarket wheels are centring off the wheel bolts & don't have hub rings. It's probably become a familiar sight to them.

[kaanage]

What annoys me very much is the tyre place didn't even bother to call me to let me know that they are required until I was paying at the register. He casually said along the line of "by the way, the rims didn't come with any locator rings so you may feel some vibrations on the steering wheels". That is a gross understatement as I was feeling the vibration on the steering wheels even at low speed (<60 kph) all the way home. Now I have a shiny new set of 17" rims and bridgestone tyres but driving it sucks more than before on the stock 16" rims with worn out Continental tyres!!

I really want to name and shame this tyre place because they obviously don't care much about the quality of their workmanship. I said this because firstly although I told them to call me if there is any issue, they never did. Secondly when I called back to ask if they will re-fit the wheels for me after I got the required locator/spigot rings. He didn't seems too keen on the idea at all, citing he didn't want to spend/waste time mucking about as they are fidgety to do, all that kind of excuses. They also couldn't do wheel alignment for my car and he just said they can't do it without giving me a clear explanation.

The highlight parts are why I feel the OP has a right to feel some grievance with the tyre store. Yes, they didn't get the sale of the wheels but they did get to sell the tyres and didn't have to discount them as much as they did if they wanted more margin in the job.

They also missed out on the opportunity to make more money (and gather customer satisfaction) by finding and offering to supply (and sell, of course) the correct bolts and the hub rings to the OP.

From the following thread, I'm pretty sure Lenso rims need 60 degree V taper bolts (nuts), as are the vast majority of aftermarket rims, but it will be easy to tell if you take off one of your bolts and look at the seat. You may see that the seat has a thin indented ring in it where the mismatched surfaces meet (the bolts are steel so the rim will deform).
Help with Lensos [Archive] - MX-5 Miata Forum

[sschen]

I have good news. After sending two emails (the second email was sent today to ask about the required wheel nuts/bolts) and not getting any email replies, I decided to give Lenso Sydney a call instead. First call I made wasn't a positive one because I was told by the receptionist? that all their people are on the phone and I was requested to call back again 15 minutes later.

I actually didn't call back for more than an hour. The second call I made was answered by a man by the name of George, so I explained to him that I have bought a set of Lenso SAGA rims from their local agent and the drama I have been having with the local tyre shop who has fitted the rims without hub centric rings and also has re-used the stock wheel nuts/bolts. The first positive was he knew the rims I have purchased even though it is no longer a current product. He asked for my car details as well as my contact/address details. He said he will double check, then organise for what I need to be sent to me. I guess I shouldn't count the chicks before they are hatched but I am impressed with what I am hearing. So hopefully they will stay true to their words. This is the level of customer service I expect.