Beware of rinspeed and borbet alloy wheels!!!

[bodster2]

BEWARE OF RINSPEED AND BORBET ALLOY WHEELS!!!

I bought a set of RINSPEED C5/1 23" Alloys about 9 months ago and have covered under 5000 miles in them.
I was driving with my family onboard last month and one of the rear tyres had a blow out and completely shredded. Luckily I wasn't going to fast so managed to control the skid.

When I fitted the spare I noticed the inside of the RINSPEED alloy had cracks all the way around leading from the inside edge towards the centre.

I thought this was a one off so decided to buy a new RINSPEED alloy.

My car has just been into Land Rover to fit the new RINSPEED alloy and to check a problem I've been having with the tyres going flat. It turns out that all 3 of the other RINSPEED alloys have similar large unrepairable cracks in them which are the reason for the tyres constantly going flat. This is obviously not acceptable on a set of alloys that are only 8-9 months old and have covered so few miles.

When I contacted RINSPEED and BORBET (who manufacturer the alloys for Rinspeed) I asked them to replace or refund the wheels under warranty due to their poor build quality, saying that it was probably a bad batch and overlooking the fact that my families lives were put at risk.

I was eventually told by the director of RINSPEED, Mr. Frank M. Rinderknecht, that BORBET say the failure was due to my driving style, i.e. smashing into kerbs etc and that they were not prepared to honour the warranty!
I was furious as I am over cautious not to damage the wheels and would say I'm a pretty safe driver.

Rinspeed say this is nothing to do with them as the wheels are manufactured by BORBET. BORBET will not reply to any of my emails even though I have threatened legal action.

Mr Bederke of BORBET has failed to respond so I can only assume that BORBET and RINSPEED alloy wheels are dangerous!

[waynne]

I would get trading standards involved. If the goods are not of merchantable quality then you should be entitled to a full refund providing you have not been excessively harsh in your treatment of the rims.

[coupe]

big company verses customer=f*** you mate.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[stamford]

Ensure you keep all dated correspondances as this will prove in court that you communicated within the 12 month period. I would involve trading standards as someone is accountable for these failures. If indeed it wasyour driving style then the damage would be isolated and easily proven using crack detection techniques and FEA. If the damage is as mentioned on the complete rim area then there is a design flaw which has resulted in fatigue which in itself tells me that wheel design was not subject to FEA before being accepted into production.

Do not let them get away with this as the next failure maybe at speed and maybe fatal.

[Prince]

Any pictures of the cracked rims? If not, at least take some for your own documents.

[billyo]

Were they sold as "show use only" as this is a favourite get out of alloy wheel makers.

[dpsubaru]

Are the wheels stamped saying they are produced according to a certain standard?

[jmvogue]

Hi I have the same problem with my Rinspeed 22" wheels, did you get any where?

[tjay56]

Just done a search for "production standards for alloy wheels.Some interesting info available!.

[Prince]

Feel free to share.