not at all the we are constantly busy and the wheels are flowing thick and fast so i'm not bothered how wll this guy is doing.

What bothers me is that i keep getting the wheels he is doing to fix and it costs the people who buythem twice as much in the 1st place than getting them done properly in the first place.

as for running a skim of silicone over the welds are you f'ing nuts, silicone isnt goning to stop much! Weld them properly in the first place and it not a problem.

AS for the welds, have we had any leak the way they are done at our engineering company . . . . NOPE!

the welds are a hell of a lot neater than the ones on these wheels and grinding back a thin weld is asking for troble anyway.

To have a slit in between the banding and wheel where it hasnt been welded for a 5" length of the steel is asking for trouble. There will be pics of all the wheels that have been sent from people for them repairing or even some of them being thrown away there that bad! Get them straight FFS and wheel wobble wouldnt be a problem as well

What takes the p!ss is that people pass them off as bandedsteels.com wheels and expect to get double there money back wen they well the leaking wheels on.

Its all down to trust at the end of the day and i know that i have run the same wheels for 3 years with no leaks or probems so i know which wheels i'm going to trust.

At the end of the day Bandedsteels.com/Widewheels has been going for 3 years and is well established at banding the wheels, its the persons choice who wants them at the end of the day.

If someone has an accident on some dodgy wheels that were done elsewhere dont think you think there coming back to Bandedsteels.com thinking the blame is lying on us, we know which wheels we have done and how safe they are.

Bozza get your facts right before you post about things you think you know about

First things first, I would like to apologise for my delayed response. Due to personal circumstances and relocation I have

not had any internet access what so ever, hence this issue has only come to my attention as of last night. i sill only have limited interbet access

What I would like to make aware to the public is that this isn't the first time that "krisb" or someone from "www.bandedsteels.com" has attempted to put a black marker against the maker of the wheels i have sold.

I have always personally felt that the world is big enough for more than one person to trade but it is clear that not

everyone feels the same way.

The particular set of wheels mentioned here that have brought the "quality" of the wheels to question were originally sold by

me;

HOWEVER... When I sold these wheels the first owner with the grey mk2, (sorry i cant remember your name) I did clearly state

that; to prevent air leaking and to prevent moisture attack onto the welds, that they must be sealed with either tiger seal

or silicone bead sealer (which comes in at anything between £5-£10). It is immediately clear that my advise here had been

disregarded and no such sealing had been carried out.

I also state to my customers that if they powder coat the wheels i supply they do not need to use any such sealant to prevent

air leaking ...AND this is the very reason why i do not supply my wheels already coated with sealant. To elaborate:

1 - Often my customers are undecided on what finish they are going to use and if they powder coat there is no need to

use sealant. By me adding the £10 of sealent and spending approximately an hour worth of labour to apply the sealant i would

raise the cost of the wheel for no useful reason.

2 - For those customers out there who do not want a powder coat finish; I let them seal the wheels themself so that

whilst doing it they can inspect the welds themselves for reassurance and also save them selves the cost of me doing a

trivial task for them (just about anyone can wipe some sealant around a wheel and most of my customers already have an open

bottle of sealant so they do not have to purchase another from me).

SO TO MAKE THIS CLEAR: the sealent my no means gives strength to the wheels but mearly fills the pinholes in the welds to

prevent any air leaking and prevents corrosion attack to the welds (thus keeping them perfectly strong)

NOW TO ADDRESS TO INTEGRITY OF THE WELDS:

The quality and the workmanship that goes in to the welds of the wheels i supply is of the highest standard and i am so

certain about them I can confidently say that are better than those which "www.bandededsteels.com" are able to do. Not only

that but at the end of this post i will add some photos of a set of wheels which i have downstairs to anyone to scrutinise (

the weld on these pictures aren't sealed)

The person that engineers the banded steels that i sell is not actually my grandfather/mother making them etc. He is infact

been making race car wheels for over 8 years as used on F1 1300 stock cars

...AND for 2ltr hod rods!

...AND in the last year alone has one of his traders has sold over 200+ sets of his wheels which have been fitted to:

a) show cars b) 11 second drag cars c)on car which have been featured on over 25 magazines with atleast 9 covers!

I my self have compared the welds that this engineer does against the original welds of original volkswagen steel wheels and

can see clearly that they are just as good if not better, cleaner and more accurate.

To help anyone make up their own mind i will include some picture of more wheels he has made and please feel free to zoom in

and interrogate.

OR EVEN BETTER, if you are thinking about purchasing any please feel free to see them in person.

IN FACT I am so confident about the quality and workmanship of these welds i am prepared to bolt 2 wheels to my own vehicle

which is a vw caddy without tyres on either wheel - 1 wheel from my engineer and the other from mr. "www.bandedsteels" (who

seems to be adamant on slagging off the the interrogate of the wheels my engineer supplies inorder to potentially kill his

competition) AND THEN SPEND AS LONG AS IS NEEDED TO FIND OUT WHICH WELD BREAK FIRST AS I RELENTLESSLY DRIVE BOTH WHEELS INTO

A KERB (and that would be a proper king-kong kerb).

I do and will stand by the quality of the product I supply and what I have merely offered is similar product to what

"www.bandedsteels.com" supply BUT one which is considerably cheaper in price yet just as well built if not better.

HERE ARE THE PICTURE EVERYBODY WANTS TO SEE: :) good-day

This first picture is of a banded steel done by my engineer and the customer that bought it hit a kerb at around 60mph and bent the wheel completely and you can see how the welds have held up:

Here is a link to bens mk1 escort which runs 9" reverse banded fiesta wheels and runs 10s out back

Here is a link to see histoic stock cars 359,334,523,and 233 which all run the wheels, as well as a few outhers

Here is a link to see f1 stock cars that have been said to run upto 750bhp and lots of them use our wheels

LOOK CLOSELY AT THE PINHOLES IN THE FIRST PICTURE

To be fair, they do look good.

I think I'll take a step back and carry on with the popcorn.

not at all the we are constantly busy and the wheels are flowing thick and fast so i'm not bothered how wll this guy is doing.

What bothers me is that i keep getting the wheels he is doing to fix and it costs the people who buythem twice as much in the 1st place than getting them done properly in the first place.

as for running a skim of silicone over the welds are you f'ing nuts, silicone isnt goning to stop much! Weld them properly in the first place and it not a problem.

AS for the welds, have we had any leak the way they are done at our engineering company . . . . NOPE!

the welds are a hell of a lot neater than the ones on these wheels and grinding back a thin weld is asking for troble anyway.

To have a slit in between the banding and wheel where it hasnt been welded for a 5" length of the steel is asking for trouble. There will be pics of all the wheels that have been sent from people for them repairing or even some of them being thrown away there that bad! Get them straight FFS and wheel wobble wouldnt be a problem as well

What takes the p!ss is that people pass them off as bandedsteels.com wheels and expect to get double there money back wen they well the leaking wheels on.

Its all down to trust at the end of the day and i know that i have run the same wheels for 3 years with no leaks or probems so i know which wheels i'm going to trust.

At the end of the day Bandedsteels.com/Widewheels has been going for 3 years and is well established at banding the wheels, its the persons choice who wants them at the end of the day.

If someone has an accident on some dodgy wheels that were done elsewhere dont think you think there coming back to Bandedsteels.com thinking the blame is lying on us, we know which wheels we have done and how safe they are.

Bozza get your facts right before you post about things you think you know about

did you say trust??????? lol you make me laugh

so we trust you lot to get the right fittment we ask for???????

so if i ask for 5x 100 why the fuck do we get 5x112???????????

hmmmmm

and sealent isnt to make it stronger just to protect the weld and keep air

yours a have to weld both sides of the wheel inside and out

and i do trust thease wheels I've had 3 sets and no prob at all

Theres nothing wrong with a bit of competition its what drives the market and pushes things forward. But wheels that leak soo bad and people ringing bandedsteels.com to try to fix other peoples work Free of charge is slightly annoying

I spoke to the guy's dad that bought this particular set and really feel for the guy hence the reason this all started and we took on the job of trying to sort them out.

There are 2 main points out of this:

1: Bandedsteels.com are always getting calls about repairing wheels other people have done and taking the flack for leaky wheels that have not been done even if we haven't done them. Sorry but these wheels are really bad and TBH everybody that has seen them has said something.

2. These wheels in question are still are dangerous. The bands have been cut to investigate why they leak so bad on the wheels are there is a 5" strip where the rim and band are not fused together through the welding process.

What really makes matters worse these wheels changed hands soo many times in such a short time and the people that bought them knew there were problems.

Someone is now £400 out of pocket. Now i'm sorry but no amount of silicone or tiger seal woud ever seal these wheels.

I will happy to donate a wheel if you want to run the in to a kerb if thats what you want to do but whats that going to prove apart from wrecking your caddy.

As for the welding it may be of "High Standard" i really dont care, we have our wheels done at an engineering company called "Promech Engineering" www.promechengineering.co.uk

There web site is proof that they are more than capable of doing the job and money was invested to get the wheels right.

Promech go above and beyond what is required and the welds and welded more than once in fact 3 - 4 times so they are neve going to split.

At the end of the day someone drew the short straw and ended out £400 out of there hard earned cash,if they rung you about the wheels to fix them that someone else had done wouldnt you be even slightly miffed off? Or if you had parted with £400 for them wouldnt you be angry if they leaked so bad?

At the end of the day they are as they are now and no amount of writing essays on here is going to get them sorted so i will leave it at that, Vdub_Ste may like to add something as it was him that drew the short straw in all this

Edited 15 September, 200916 yr by krisb

Sorry but i have some of "damlow's" banded steels i admit have never ran them on the car but currently work in a welding factory and can say they have no fault in the weld and i had tyres on the wheels for over 2 months and not one of them lost pressure.

He was more than helpful when it came to telling me how to properly prep the wheels and sealing them up took me 45mins and they balanced up fine.

These wheels are good quality.

I do not intend to upset anyone or make enemies but i had to say my piece.

As for the person who now owns the wheels they should maybe point the blame at the person who didn't prep them properly after instruction and not the person who made them.

i can only speak as i find, i bought these wheels in complete faith

only to find once inflated two wheels went flat.

I then found air to be hissing out of them, and not just a small hole, there was two major places where air was hissing out, surely if something has been welded properly it shouldn't have various holes and need sealing aswell ! I have taken idvise on the matter, and found that the wheels are dangerous and could collapse at any time when under load I.E - fixed to a vehicle and driven. I'm only 16 and working every hour god sends to save money to get the look i want and buy the parts i want for my car ready for my near coming 17th birthday, and its disappointing when a fellow vw enthusiast will take 400quid of my hard earned cash , surely knowing they were defective, his only excuse being 'the didnt look right on my car'. To be honest the guy i bought them off seemed genuine but at the end of the day he must have just been another person who bought them, realised the problem and quickly got rid of them, not stating any problems when selling. Leaving me to pick up the pieces at more cost !

If the guy i bought them off had any concience he would offer me something back, as now I've ended up spending near £700 for a set a steel wheels ! And lets face it the most valuable part of these wheels is the tyres, and even they were budget tyres ! In a time when i was stuck and didnt no what else to do, Kris at bandedsteels couldn't have been more helpful and id like to big him up as much as i possibly can, as he regularly rings me, with updates on findings with the wheels and what he can do to help me, aswell as to just find out how my car is going. He has become more of a friend to me, a friend that has and is doing everything he can to help me out.

If the guy i bought them off was being genuine in the sale id like to take this opportunity to apologise, but i dont suppose we'll ever really no, because who's going to admit to it, he's 400quid up n I'm 700 down.

And back to talk about having to seal the wheels, why is it that with bandedsteels.com wheels, this sealant is not needed (because the welds are done properly?)

And like i said at the start i can only speak as i find, and for fear of repeating myself, Kris from bandedsteels.com is the person who had offered to help me out and i can honestly say, that i have confidence in what he does.

cheers

ste