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Originally Posted by drcollie
(Post 3723880)
OK! Here we go....what everyone was waiting for (I guess). Wheels installed by my pal Scott, who has the finest equipment at one of his tire stores and has been doing this for 30 years. He has sold just about every wheel brand ever made, including lots of HRE's and done them on every car imaginable. Installed with a Corghi tire machine and Hunter Road Force Balancer. His comments were:
* Very nicely done wheels * Incredible finish * Can't believe you can buy as set for $ 1,200 * They REALLY update the car * Both rear wheels were 'walking' (side to side runout) and difficult to balance, but he indicated he was able to correct most of that and anyone buying these should definitely only have them balanced on a Hunter Road Force machine. Fronts were fine. He then said you would never get that runout on a wheel like an HRE, but then these are not priced like an HRE. Offest is aggressive, but not over the top. I'm happy with the fit and fitment - just don't get too close to any curbs as these will take the hit. These are the stock tires sizes for the 2007 Aston (19" wheel option) and the car has not been - and will not be - lowered. So, its a cosmetic change only, and I think worth every penny....I would buy again. ACE WHEEL needs to do one thing, however - and either include the lug nuts with the wheels or sell them as an accessory, because a lot of wheel buyers are going to get aggravated trying to chase these down on their own. It would be very frustrating for a buyer to order a wheel and tire combo from a dealer - have them arrive and then he can't install them because there are no lug nuts that will fit. Little things like that make a difference. Now, onto the photos....it was late in the afternoon and some snowflakes coming down, the best I can do for now.... http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps06ebbd21.jpg |
Originally Posted by cret
(Post 3723895)
is it possible to put AM center cap on these?
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wow!
looks amazing.....what a nice choice! it's tough picking out wheels isn't it? I've done it a few times and it's never easy and I'm always a bit worried....then they get installed...haha very nice! hope to have one of these someday......seriously considering trading my 2012 CLS63 towards one...... thanx for sharing your pictures |
Looks like they came out just right; not too far out like the photos in the Ace post. Much better looking then stock, that's for sure!
Good choice ! |
I think the offest looks Perfect. I will hopefully be be getting a set of these in the near future.
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I told you my offsets would be right on the money :). ... If they had a few mm higher it would be even better, but overall they look very good.
Definitely far superior than the stock wheels, and for $1200 that's a steal of a bargain! |
Duane,
Do you have a contact person over at Element Wheels? and what size and brand tires did you end up putting on? Also, I was looking at the receipt that you provided in one of the earlier posts. Where does it say what the actual bolt pattern for these wheels? |
007Vantage: YES! I do appreciate your help - they came out well. Had I to do it over again I'd want to tuck the rears I about 1/2", but that's not enough to fuss about really.
Shadowhusky: I just ordered off their website at Element Wheel. Those are the stock Bridgestones on there, I just swapped the TPS sensors and tires from the factory 19" wheels as the tires only have 5K miles on them. |
I have a few more questions for you. Are the wheels hub centric or did you have to get hub rings for them?
I also dont see anyplace to specify Aston Martin on the Element Wheels website. Am I missing something? |
They are hubcentric.....pretty much just source the lug nuts and you're good to go. You *can* replace the TPS sensors if you're feeling rich, the batteries are good for 10 years in them and our 07's and coming up on 6 years old, but I decided that I'll probably burn off these tires about the time the TPS sensors need replacement.
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One more about the Element Wheels website. I think you might have responded before I edited it. You are extremely fast with your answers.
How do you specify Aston Martin on Element Wheels website? It is not even a option to pick in the drop down. |
LOL....I'm fast because I'm bored out of my mind in my furniture store today...no one buys furniture on 12/22 three days before Xmas, so I'm going back and forth from the Aston Forum to The BMW K1600 Forum, then to EBAY, and sadly enough, I've even gone to tmz.com to see the article about Kate Upton stripping for the Antarctic photo shoot...
Anyways, here's the link you want at Element Wheel, and just put in there for the car and they'll call you.... OR ..... my whole order was posted here earlier, I suppose in the comments you could just tell them to replicate that order using the order number if you want the same fitments. But they will call you on the phone before processing the order. Good luck! http://www.elementwheels.com/proddet...ace-d7041910hs http://www.elementwheels.com/proddet...ace-d7041910hs |
They definitely look great! I think the car is in dire need of being lowered just the .75" that the H&R's provide, and these wheels somehow highlight that, but I know you said you're not interested in that. I just spent $400 on H&R spacers to get nearly this identical offset with stock 7 spoke anthracite wheels... makes me wonder if I should have put that money towards just a set like this. I do like the anthracite color, though. Oh well... Maybe another day.
David |
Thanks Duane
I appreciate all your help !!!!!!:D |
Originally Posted by dbp
(Post 3724484)
They definitely look great! I think the car is in dire need of being lowered just the .75" that the H&R's provide, and these wheels somehow highlight that, but I know you said you're not interested in that.David
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Originally Posted by drcollie
(Post 3724341)
007Vantage: YES! I do appreciate your help - they came out well. Had I to do it over again I'd want to tuck the rears I about 1/2", but that's not enough to fuss about really.
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Originally Posted by drcollie
(Post 3724590)
I hesitate to lower the car, David, only because in all my past rides it stiffens up the ride considerably and I'm not really willing to compromise on that for the better cosmetics of the lowered car. Now if you can tell me that the ride quality stayed the same .... then maybe my arm could be twisted!
David |
Originally Posted by 007 Vantage
(Post 3722350)
Unfortunately nobody includes lugs with their wheels, also, Aston lugs are very wide in diameter and do not fit any aftermarket wheels. Most aftermarket wheels use aftermarket tuner Lugnuts in order to improve the wheels aesthetics, as big gaping holes can alter the wheels design (and integrity to some extent). One of the many headaches I learned from back when I ordered my Rennen wheels.
Luckily Aston uses Ford Truck splines (yes more ford parts bin diving). So it's relatively easy to find lugs, albeit not the best looking ones). ACE Wheels look great btw |
Goofing around with my admittedly poor Photoshop skills, and decided to post a before and after shot...nothing has changed on the car but the wheels. Photos taken about a month apart.
http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4adef8ef.jpg |
Originally Posted by plastique999
(Post 3726589)
You mentioned Rennen wheels...how do you compare the ACE to the Rennen? Reason I ask is that I am trying to decide between the Donz Forged Ferranti wheels vs these ACE alloy wheels. I do like the 5 split spoke style although would like the split spikes to be closer together as in the Ferranti model.
ACE Wheels look great btw The Rennens were 21.5lbs front, 22.5lbs rear, which for 19x9, and 19x11 is very impressive weights. Rennen the company is a huge pain in the ass to deal with, their recommended offsets are terrible, and they do not provide good lugnuts for the wheels (you are on your own kinda). The wheels themselves were absolutely gorgeous, but it too 7 months to get them after wrong offsets were ordered and had to be redone. All in all, I would not recommend going back that route, if you can get cast wheels with custom offsets that can easily be done quickly, I would recommend going that route to reduce headaches. If Ace could do 50mm rears they would be perfect offsets, but they only go up to 45mm unfortunately. (maybe with enough persuasion they will do it) $1200 you cannot go wrong. |
Originally Posted by dbp
(Post 3724624)
I've done H&R springs only on one of my BMW M coupes and it made the ride quality go to ****. The other M Coupe had full H&R Coilovers which were a vast improvement over stock. I have a set of H&R springs for the Vantage sitting in the garage and they will be installed after Christmas. I'll report back on ride quality. I've heard several people here say the ride quality improves or stays the same. I haven't read anyone say it degrades the quality. I'm a bit skeptical myself, but we'll see! The Aston has "coilovers" already, so it's probably that the struts are just of higher quality and able to deal with the lowering springs better than the BMW's I've previously used them with.
David |
Nice job. FF |
Duane, your car looks seriously good, the wheel finish along with the color of your car. I know you said you're not going to lower it but, it would really be over the top if you did. Looks a little up in the air? Maybe it affects the ride more in a V8V but my ride is not terrible and I went from sport pack springs to H&R. Are there any options for a softer ride?
From another thread: http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps63b55066.jpg |
No rubbing as it is now...but boy - maybe if lowered. Then that's a real PITA when that happens as its either get the fender roller out, go back to stock springs, or change the wheels. And while I've rolled a lot of fenders in years gone by, I don't think I could do that to this car! I might try it if I can pick up some used springs, I'll keep an eye out for some that are for sale like the H&R's, they're only 3/4" drop and I can put them on myself - think I can still find my spring compressor.
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^^^ No need for a spring compressor, these cars have coilovers from the factory just replace the springs and re-install and re-align. The only issue is camber gain, but that's a known thing. I think you can adjust the wheel spacing with spacers if needed to resolve any rubbing issues, just a guess as I have the sport pack on my DB and have not lowered it, I think it sits perfect with the sport pack which is lower and more aggresive then standard and handles just right so didn't really see a need to lower it at this time if at all.
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Originally Posted by LRDog
(Post 3727715)
Duane, your car looks seriously good, the wheel finish along with the color of your car. I know you said you're not going to lower it but, it would really be over the top if you did. Looks a little up in the air? Maybe it affects the ride more in a V8V but my ride is not terrible and I went from sport pack springs to H&R. Are there any options for a softer ride?
From another thread: http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps63b55066.jpg |
Originally Posted by sunir
(Post 3727922)
No need for a spring compressor, these cars have coilovers from the factory just replace the springs and re-install and re-align.
http://www.davidparis.org/vantage/IMG_2580m.jpg |
Originally Posted by dbp
(Post 3728428)
That's not true. I'm in the middle of this exact process now on my Vantage (writeup to follow). The stock springs have pre-load dialed in front and rear and the fronts required more cranks with the spring compressor than any BMW spring I've dealt with in my past. I really needed to grab the WHOLE spring with the compressors effectively get them unloaded from the upper perch. The rears didn't need nearly as much compression, but they did require quite a few more cranks than this image implies. The H&R springs do NOT require spring compressors to get on, which is great. The front actually needed about 10mm of compression to get on, but your impact wrench will do that just putting the top bolt on. The rear had about 10mm of flop. So to give you an idea of how much you need to effectively compress the springs, on the outsides of this photo are the H&R springs. The inner springs are stock. The Left two are front, and right two are rear.
http://www.davidparis.org/vantage/IMG_2580m.jpg |
^^^ What LR said. I dunno about the Vantage but doesn't appear so on DB9/DBS which are threaded coilvers from the factory, at least the sport pack is... the suspension looks like something right off the racing circuit :)
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Don't mean to state the obvious here, but Duane does have a Vantage, so that's what we're talking about here. I just didn't want someone to get impaled by a spring when he removed the top bolt without compressing the spring. :-) The workshop manual is clear about the use of spring compressors though.
David |
^^^ Excellent point David. You are right. We do not want any of our members hurt. Thank you for you valuable information and continued help :)
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The rims look great, and they're quite a bargain. I'm tempted to buy a set for my Onyx black Vantage...maybe in this finish:
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8...vexblkmach.jpg |
^^^ Not a fan of that color scheme at all. Have never seen it look good on any car let a,one an AM....
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Originally Posted by LRDog
(Post 3728757)
^^^ Not a fan of that color scheme at all. Have never seen it look good on any car let a,one an AM....
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Originally Posted by eelton
(Post 3728759)
Thanks for the input. It would be good to see them on a car first. I don't like all-black wheels, but the two-tone somehow appeals to me.
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...n-vantage.html http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/...psd002a7af.jpg I thought it would look good when I saw just the wheel, but on the car it looks horrible (the 20" size doesn't help, but the color alone looks wrong). I was thinking perhaps the Titanium finish would look good on darker colored cars, but I looked at that finish on some cars (there's photos online... none on an Aston, though) and even the Titanium doesn't look all that good. David |
Thanks for that. I agree...they do look better in silver. (And I prefer the 19s to the 20s.)
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No question Hyper Silver on this wheel. For some reason it doesn't look so great in black either. I am really debating getting these in Hyper or the Ace Mesh 7 in Matte Mica Gray. But I keep coming back to wondering about a full concave wheel from likes of Rennen, ADV1, BC Forged etc. Look super cool but nearly 3x the cost!
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I really need to see this dark Vantage lowered on the Convex. My XKR is black and the silver Vantage doesn't quite give me the visual of how the finish would look against my lowered XKR. Drcollie, when do you plan to mount springs?
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Originally Posted by drcollie
(Post 3723880)
OK! Here we go....what everyone was waiting for (I guess)........
http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8adc3ec7.jpg http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...psa90fe7aa.jpg http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1577cef1.jpg http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...psee4652cf.jpg http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8494b4a3.jpg http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1eefd74c.jpg http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...ps06ebbd21.jpg FF |
Duane,
Did you swap the TPMS sensors or did you have your install shop do it. Either way did you have to buy anything to swap them out to the new wheels. New seals or something similar to that? |
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