Replica Wheels - My experience.`

xl_cheese · December 28, 2015

In summary, it's not worth it. At least from the guy I bought mine from.

I purchased a set of wheels and tires from an ebay seller called Novuswheels. The are based out of Dallas. They seemed to have a high seller rating so I went for it. I emailed them some questions and he said he could add the tpms sensors free if I went outside of ebay.

The wheels showed up the next day and I installed them. First drive I noticed some vibrations at 65-70mph. Seller advised me to get them balanced again. Didn't offer to cover the charge.

I went to discount tire and had them balanced. They tech said they were balanced funny because there were multiple weights in different spots around the wheels. I drove home and noticed the shaking was slightly worse. Went back a few days later to have the balanced again and tech informed me 3 of the wheels had wobbles and were out of round.

Novus provided 3 new wheels, but I had to have the swapped in at my expense. Went back to discount with the 3 new wheels, had the swapped in and drove home. I initally thought the shaking was fixed. Around 65, it seemed barely noticable and decided to live with it. Then, a few days later I reached 75mph and the shakes were back in full force.

I had plans to take a few days off of work to visit friends in Dallas so I informed Novus I would be stopping by for them to fix the shaking wheels. I spent half a day there while they balanced, balanced, and swapped in wheels. Between each balancing I had to take them for a drive to test. Nothing they did seemed to work. I gave up after spending have of a vacation day at their shop.

After returning home I put my oem wheels back on. They were perfect. I contacted Novuswheels to request a refund on them. Their offers were to purchase more expensive wheels or a partial refund. They were not willing to cover the shipping costs. I made a claim with paypal, but paypal didn't help. They stated that since the wheels and tires were used there was nothing they could do. Really?!

At the end of the day, my wife conviced me to take my losses and not spend anymore time wrestling with these things. I just returned them for a partial refund. In all, I'm out almost $500.

Hopefully, this will save someone else the money and headache of buying replica wheels from Novuswheels. They certainly don't stand behind their product.

crewl1 · December 28, 2015

Thanks for the heads up, and sorry for your waste of time and money.

xranger90 · January 8, 2016

This is good warning for even other wheels that usually looks good but might have poor engineering.

Does this kind of issue should up on any of their reviews?

DirtyMarcus · January 9, 2016

That sucks. I think when the time comes, I'll just buy some aftermarket rims and not replicas.

BlackZ71Silverado · January 19, 2016

There are good quality "replica" wheels out there, basically the same quality as OEM wheels. Stick with well known companies that put out a good quality product and you will not have any issues.

Stay away from unknown items that you find on ebay, that's probably the worst decision one could make. The prices may seem attractive but you are getting a very low quality product, as the OP experienced.

Sorry to hear you wasted a bunch of money but you should have known better than to basically experiment with an unknown product to begin with.

xl_cheese · January 20, 2016

There are good quality "replica" wheels out there, basically the same quality as OEM wheels. Stick with well known companies that put out a good quality product and you will not have any issues.

Stay away from unknown items that you find on ebay, that's probably the worst decision one could make. The prices may seem attractive but you are getting a very low quality product, as the OP experienced.

Sorry to hear you wasted a bunch of money but you should have known better than to basically experiment with an unknown product to begin with.

How do we know which are good replica wheels and which are not? They all look the same... Can you suggest some good companies?

Chris · January 20, 2016

How do we know which are good replica wheels and which are not? They all look the same... Can you suggest some good companies?

Oe wheels llc

Factory reproductions

These are the companies i have dealt with. I have Factory Reproductions 20's. I have had them on for 5 years and over 100,000 miles and over 2 sets of tires. They have always balanced fine and no vibrations.

xl_cheese · January 20, 2016

Oe wheels llc

Factory reproductions

These are the companies i have dealt with. I have Factory Reproductions 20's. I have had them on for 5 years and over 100,000 miles and over 2 sets of tires. They have always balanced fine and no vibrations.

Oe wheels are the brand I had that caused so much trouble.

Chris · January 20, 2016

Oe wheels are the brand I had that caused so much trouble.

People i know have them and have never had an issue. I went with Factory Reproductions because when i was doing my old firebird they were well known in the muscle car scene.

quise2024 · June 28, 2016

Oe wheels are the brand I had that caused so much trouble.

In your original post you said you bought through NovusWheels. I actually had a couple of theirs saved in my eBay but i havent considered them for the simple fact its eBay and their policies are quite BS now-a-days.

So are you saying you used oewheelsllc the company or the wheel that novus gave you was oewheels brand?

Alos my other question is, if thats the brand they sent you then is that in relation to oewheelsllc?

xl_cheese · June 28, 2016

Oe Wheels are the brand of wheel that Novus sells. The wheels were faulty. I went through 7 of them and they all shook. Novus was the company that I had poor service from. Just stay away!

MisterBaboon · July 4, 2016

cheese, if you don't mind me asking, what wheels did you buy? I started a thread elsewhere asking for experiences with Novus. I didn't get any negative feedback and I saw a bunch of positive reviews on ebay so I went ahead and ordered. Someone then mentioned some bad reviews and linked me to this thread. My wheels haven't arrived yet but seeing this post I am nervous. Thanks.