If you have shopped around for a set of forged wheels, you will likely find they are priced at different price points among different companies. Major wheel companies are selling for an average of $10K+ a set, and some small companies are selling for as little as $3K a set. At this point, you are probably wondering: Why are the prices different and what’s the difference in quality between a $10K set and a $3K set? The simple answer is that there are differences in many aspects that you can’t directly see but play big roles in terms of durability, safety, and ethnicity. Below are some of the main factors. And I hope by reading to the end of this article, you are more prepared to invest in wheel upgrades.
There are pre-made forged wheel options that are usually less expensive. examples are BBS and Apex where they have ready-made fitment and finishes for different cars, but it’s no different than buying flow-formed wheels other than the wheels being forged. Made-to-order forged wheels are completely created from scratch and tailored to each customer’s order. From wheel size, width, PCD, and offset to wheel finishes. Customers can build a set of wheels to their exact fitment needs with the wheel color and finishes that they want.
The United States and China are the two main manufacturers responsible for making almost 90% of the forged wheels on the market. USA-made forged wheels are usually sold as premium options with up to $20K for a set. They are hand-built in the US by US workers and are usually preferred by exotic car owners. Chinese-made forged wheels are deemed as a more affordable option as they are usually sold at about 40%-70% of the price compared to their US-made counterparts. The main difference comes down to labor and machining shop costs. A skilled operator and machine shop in the US charges around $100-$200 per hour whereas in China it is about $15-$20 per hour. Creating a set of forged wheels can take anywhere from half a day to days thus the costs.
Wheels from companies that are doing their own R&D and Design development will cost more because of the investment in time and money to develop new designs. A wheel design can take 100+ hours to conceive from initial concept sketches to full solid models to engineering safety testing. Major wheel brands keep pushing out new designs every year for people to enjoy. The costs of developing new wheel designs are significant. Some low-cost forged wheel companies do not have design capability. They rely on Chinese factories’ catalogs or their “send me a photo of what you want” design service. Due to a lack of intelligent property protection laws and enforcement in China, these designs often ended up being replicas of well-known brands or slightly tweaked variations of an existing design. However, these wheel designs may not be structurally sound because they are to copy the look of a wheel and may not be designed with proper parameters. For example, BBS FI-R is a popular replica from Chinese rep manufacturers that can make a forged wheel copy that looks almost identical. However, FI-R's are made with a completely different mold forging method which produces wheels that are stronger than machine-forged wheels. With the same spoke designs and spoke pocketing, the replicas do not have the same strength characteristics and can be potentially dangerous to run.
Not all 6061-T6 raw forgings are created equal. 6061 is a blend of aluminum alloy and T6 is the heat treatment that it goes through. Depending on how precise the blend of aluminum alloy is, and how long and how precise the heat treatment process is, the final aluminum mechanical property will vary. There are also different press machines ranging from 4,000 tons to 10,000 tons which produce forged aluminum with different strength characteristics. Low-cost forged wheel companies tend to work with small Chinese machine shops that produce wheels at a cheaper price. A way for them to keep the costs down is by using cheap raw forgings that may or may not meet quality standards. So as a buyer, always make sure the company you are buying from works with a reputable manufacturer. At Forgelite Wheels, we use proprietary forgings that are made by our manufacturer in-house to ensure our customers get “the highest quality” forged 6061-T6 aluminum. Our raw forgings cost 2 times more compared to the average Chinese forging price on the market.
The most important indicator of a wheel’s manufacturing quality is wheel runout. Runout is a measurement of the roundness of an object, the lower the number, the closer the object is to a perfect circle. If wheel runout is high, there will be vibration coming through the steering wheel when driving at high speed which is very dangerous. Out-of-tolerance runout is unfortunately unfixable. The only way to remediate this is to remake another wheel from scratch. To keep the overall cost down, small manufacturers sometimes keep an eye closed and hope the customers will not notice. At Forgelite Wheels, we check the runout measures on every single wheel to make sure they meet our spec of 0.02”/0.5mm or less, whereas the North American industry standard is 0.03”/0.75mm. If the runout readings are out of spec at the QC stage, we remake another wheel(s). You will be able to find the runout measurements on your wheels’ QC stickers that we put on every wheel that we produce.
There are two major ways to finish wheels. Liquid paint or powder coat. Liquid paint is used by 99% of Chinese wheel manufacturers because it’s cheap to implement, easy to apply, and offers a variety of colors. Powder Coat is the industry standard in North America because the powder coat finish surface is 20 times more durable compared to the liquid paint finish. Powder Coat is much more resistant to peeling, scratching, and chipping compared to a paint finish. However, powder coats take longer to set up and require training and equipment to properly apply. Forgelite Wheels manufacturer is the only one in China that is capable of properly applying and curing powder coats. At Forgelite Wheels, we buy and import Made in USA powder to the manufacturer to give our customers a beautiful and long-lasting wheel finish.
This is something that customers don’t see but plays a critical role in the final wheel product quality. USA manufacturers typically have stricter QC procedures to check the final wheel dimensions and finish quality. Performing QC can take hours and add additional labor costs to making the wheels. Small overseas wheel manufacturers, however, may have a QC procedure in place, but to pump out as many wheels as possible for profit, they may or may not perform proper QC checks on all the wheels that they produce. Thus issues like wrong wheel offset, wrong center bore size, defective wheel finishes, etc. occur. And it creates massive headaches for the end customers. Companies selling forged wheels for cheap usually solely rely on the factory to perform QC checks and have no way to stop potentially defective wheels from getting sent to their customers. Forgelite Wheels has employees in China to perform our own independent final QC checks to ensure the final delivered product quality.
There is more value to just the ‘price of a set of wheels' when you are buying from a wheel company. You are also buying their pre-sale services and post-sale support. Compared to buying off-the-shelf flow form and cast wheels, where you need to do research yourself, a good forged wheel company will be able to help you choose and select the optimal wheel size, finish, and fitment based on experience and knowledge; as well as provide support if you do run into issues or need warranty claims.
In conclusion, other than the brand name that sometimes people pay for, there are genuine differences in product quality and how they are made between expensive and cheap forged wheels. After all, it would not make sense for a company to sell something that costs them $100 to make at $50. Things are usually cheap for a reason, and some corners have to be cut to bring down costs. As a customer, the best way to avoid potential issues is to do your research on the company that you are buying from and make sure their wheels are made by reputable shops/manufacturers and not solely relying on the price being cheaper, as they might end up costing you more.