I am the perfect example of Murphy’s law . I was about to purchase new tires for my 89 when I came across RAP87’s ad. http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...ghlight=bd2626

Since I have a 91 with saw blades on it, which I don’t like, I thought this was a chance to upgrade my 91, use the tires currently on my 91 for my 89… or so I thought! RAP87 agreed to meet me part way to avoid shipping charges which was great of him. I sent my deposit when I said I would, actually a day earlier. We met and I paid the other ½ of the cost of the wheels. Loaded up and drove the 3 + hours back home Sunday afternoon. When I got the wheels out and really started going over them I noticed that the two 11 inch rears where not the same, oh the are ZR-1 style, but one has the true deep center as on the ZR-1’s, the other does not….my fault for not noticing this before. So I take the wheels to be balanced and mounted on my 91 (dropped them off Monday morning), at a shop I have been dealing with for over 10 years, it get’s better….one of the 9.5 inch front rims are bent to the point it can not be balanced. This was discovered as the shop tried to balance it along with the rest of the wheels I purchased. There is no visual sign that the wheel is bent. So now I have two mis-matched 11 inch wheels, one 9.5 inch wheel that is bent beyond use and here is RAP87’ response. “

RAP87’s PM response,
“The rear wheels both have the same exact measurements printed on the inside of the rim. I don't understand why you are saying they are mismatched and in all the pictures I have posted they look identical and are the same size rim/offset. There is no visual nor actual printed size difference, especially when mounted to the car. These rims were on the car originally and being that they look all identical in style and function it wouldn't make sense to have 2 different size rear wheels. As far as the bent rim goes, I can guarantee you this rim wasn't bent when I dropped it off to you. I had these tires mounted/balanced and within 50 miles of having them my engine blew. It that point the tires were removed and stored in my house. If, this bend is easily visible you should have verified the condition when I dropped them off to you, and you would have found NO BEND. In any case the tires are brand new, I spent alot of time cleaning the rims, and drove them halfway to you free of charge. I described them exactly as they were with all printed sizes and offsets as are on the rims and took detailed pictures. I also have the receipt showing that these tires were professionally mounted/balanced and my posts on this forum in regards to my engine problems reflect the time when I got these tires. Those rims easily retail for a grand on some sites and you got tires and lug nuts that retail for what you paid and a grand worth of rims that were in the condition described when I dropped them to you. I'm not going to warranty the rims, especially when you had the chance to inspect them on site...in which case you would have saw no bend.

*As far as my reputation on this forum I have sold several items with no complaints, most recently an MSD Optispark, which is serving its new owner with no problems, I also have an ebay account with all positive feedback*”


I love the part that states “As far as the bent rim goes, I can guarantee you this rim wasn't bent when I dropped it off to you.” I guess the ride in my Explorer damaged this rim!

I fulfilled every part of the deal as we agreed upon.

Here are the pictures of the 11’s…..you be the judge!







YOU CAN DECIDE IF YOU WANT TO DEAL WITH RAP87 IN THE FUTURE. I KNOW I SURE HOPE TO RUN INTO HIM AGAIN.

 

Sorry to hear this bro, but I ty for the warning.

EDIT: just noticed you live in Mechanicsburg. One of my best friends lives there!!

 

Since he only lives six hours away, I'd think that could be arranged.

After looking at the pictures...and providing you are actually showing both rear wheels... I'd say he should give you a refund.

Caveat Emptor.



Larry
code5coupe

__________
not easily impressed....

 

Yeah that last picture of the wheel is totally a different one!

 

Hi- It sure looks like you've been had. The important thing is, did you learn anything about buying used stuff? Never take ANYBODY'S word about quality, correctness or condition. You always need to look hard for yourself or this is what can happen.
Really sorry that you got screwed on your deal.
As far as the seller? Very simple truth in life! Everything that we ever do eventually comes back to us, one way or another.

 

That sucks. How didn't you notice the difference in those wheels?

 

When I started to clean and polish them. The two wheels were the same, not the rims. I screwed up by not noticing them before I drove home, but the comment about the bent rim getting bent in my Explorer on the way home is the topper. Read his response, he feels he did nothing wrong.

Thanks

 

I am not surprised he feels that way, he had to of known about the problems. I don't see how he could not have known about one of the wheels being totally different. This suggests to me that he will not be giving you the refund that you deserve. Good luck!

 

One rule that I have lived by is not to purchase used rims, period. It's one area that I have just decided NOT to try to save money on. I'm the cheapest bastich you could ever meet, but there's just too much that can go wrong with a used rim that you really can't tell upon a visual inspection. As for the dispute with Rap87, sounds like you guys have reached an empass. I hope the two of you can reach a conclusion, it would be nice of he would offer to return your money and take the rims back.

dd

 

Now a new rule for me! I actually am selling another set of rims, so I took them to the shop to be checked so I don't go through this as a seller.

 

And there's no way the seller didn't know that.

I addition, bent wheels aren't always visibly bent. It may look fine, but if the seller ever balanced these wheels he'd have known one was bent.

 

The two rear rims having different offsets doesn't make much sense.
(Unless somebody hit a stationary object real hard and shifted the whole rear-end).

My question is, how easy is it to buy just one rim?
That would have to be a pretty pricey scenario. Most places
will want to sell a matching set, not one size only.

Just wondering out loud computerwise, but it doesn't make sense to me.

If one is to believe the seller, he was unaware of the offsets as the car came with those rims.
As for the bent rim. Well, again the seller only drove the car for what? 50 miles before pukeing the engine. Probably not enough time to tell something was wrong. I'll take a wild guess and say the car was a POS,seeing that the seller gave up on it that quick.


But again, I'm assuming.

 

The dude freakin' washed/cleaned the wheels....believe me, he knew they were different. The sad part is, you can tell from the pics he posted that they're different.

 

Not Cool. I am actually thinking of purchasing a set of CE wheels from a fellow here locally. I guess it will play in my favor because he owns a tire store/shop.

 

This thread is getting some traction. I'm still of the opinion that he should simply offer a refund and as a good faith gesture that there is a small possibility that he was unaware of the problems, maybe you could come to a financial arrangement for the time spent in meeting you halfway to make the transaction. His comment about you possibly causing the damage in transporting them home smells a little bit foul, but if he's reading these posts, the way to save face and do what is right to a fellow auto enthusiast is to simply cancel the transaction.
DD

 

I just purchased a set of CE silver not chrome wheels last week. Got a great price, can hardly wait what they really look like. (mismatched/bent) I guess used wheels are used wheels.

 

i don't feel one bit bad for you, as you stated before, you should have inspected the wheels futher before you handed over the rest of the cash or any cash.

 

Well, I see that stepping into this thread isn't going to make much of a difference, as it seems that judgement has already been passed down. I bought this car with these rims on it, the tires that came on this car were exactly the same size except for the rears which were 315s. They needed to be replaced, which I replaced with the tires that were sold with these rims. I purchased the tires at Firestone tires here locally and they mounted , balanced and put on new valve stems. I also purchased the lug nuts from Firestone which went with these tires. My total ticket at Firestone, which I will scan in if I have to was $869.00. Shortly after having these tires put on my car my engine overheated and if you research my posts you will see all my posts about my headgasket attempts and prolly even see pics of my car on jackstands. These tires were put in my house and were not even touched until I decided that since I didn't have the 4k for new engine and my headgasket attempts did not work, there was no use in my new tires and brand new opti spark that I bought just sitting there. I already sold the optispark, and if you research that post I am sure you will find one happy buyer, I even scanned in my receipt in for that sale. Anyway, I took the first pictures as they were in my house, when I saw that there was interest in the tires I rolled them out onto the porch and cleaned them with soap/water and chrome polish, and no I did not notice any differences in the size of the rims. The tires right next to each other look exactly the same. As, I was cleaning the inside rims I did notice on one of the rear rims that the offset read correctly for what forum members were telling me the GS offset was, so I updated my post with what they would obviously have to be to be on my 96 vette. I would imagine if there was any problem running these rims the guys at Firestone would have brought this to my attention. In any case my only intentions were to unload brand new items that I had recently purchased for this car in attempt to get back money that wasn't helping the car move. Which is why I sold a brand new opti spark and brand new tires...the rims to me were free and to sweeten the deal to get the money back for my brand new tires. Being that the offset on the rear wheels are the same I do not see a problem with running them. As far as the front tire if you can't visibly see a bend and Firestone mounted these for me which I have a receipt for....to my knowledge and apparently to their machines they were fine when I took them off the car. I am sorry that they weren't 100% what you were looking for, but I believe in my posts and in my ad I described them to the best of my knowledge and did not sell these with any intent to cover up anything. Obviously if I had thought there was a painfully obvious difference in the rims, do you think I would have made a drive in person for you to have an attempt at looking at them while I was there...no...I would have chose to ship them to someone in CA or something...if I was that type of person, which I'm not..sheesh...But in any case I noticed no problems with running them on my car when my car was capable of moving and if they are the same offset they should run fine...except someone who is real **** might notice a cosmetic half an inch difference in the depth from one side to another. In any case I was only selling brand new items opti spark and tires. My only other intentions are now looking for a cheapy set of rims for like $100 to get my car on the ground so the city doesn't have a problem looking at my eye sore vette. Anyway I think that sums up my position, hopefully someone can see my side in this.

 

Ok, that's one less person I'll buy from here.
Decpetive practices are deceptive practices. Just because the buyer wasn't as careful as he could have been doesn't mean the seller has a license to screw him.

 

That offset thing is weird. You would think there would be one offset per wheel style - I'm not sure I would have noticed it.

I don't think you can "eyeball" a wheel and tell if it's going to balance or not.

I'm really sorry you got hosed.

We can all learn from this. Buying used wheels is risky.