Haha Juan is a defensive guy, but I do agree with him. Ive never had any problems with HRE, customer service and quality is first rate. If any company is around long enough, it will have complaints about something. Champion hasnt been selling wheels anywhere near as long as HRE, so they wont have as much chance to have customer service/quality issues.

If I had never touched either wheel, I would say HRE is a better choice. Customer service is great, multitude of options on every wheel, and they will accommodate any request(including 15" wide wheels!). Either way, HRE and Champion are essentially made the same way, and you can only do so much with 6061 forged aluminum. When someone decides to do independent destructive testing on wheels from both brands, then we can really say who makes better wheels.

 

First of all, I agree whole heartedly with the sentiment that you should definitely not do any modifications to your HRE or any other wheel for that matter. If you have a fitment request, call us and we'll see if we can accomodate you by making a change.

As for HRE's reputation, I assume people might be referring to the Audi Forum post from a few years ago. I'm sure you can find our official response by searching as well, but basically after spending significant amounts of time researching supposed track failures and speaking to the track organizations named, we came to find that the information was simply false and apparently posted for personal reasons. The wheel shown in photos was a competitor's wheel and their failure was due to overheating by their powdercoater. This is one of the reasons why HRE powdercoats and strips our wheels in-house. Unfortunately this rumor did and still does horrible damage to our reputation; evident by the fact that I have to respond to it still today.

If you have any concerns at all about the quality of an HRE wheel, please never hesitate to call or email me directly. As the head of design, engineering, and production at HRE, I am intimately aware of the details regarding our wheel quality and design and can easily explain or show you how we do it and why we do it the way that we do.

Better yet, if you want to attend one of our open houses like we're having this weekend, I give several tours and can answer any questions regarding our design, engineering or production. If after that and you still have any doubts about our commitment to quality, you should know that we recently received TUV verification of our engineering, manufacturing and quality control processes at our facility here in Vista, CA by passing an audit by German TUV officials. This allows us to send our wheels to Germany for structural testing and TUV certification.

We are in the process of doing just that and the M40 and P40s have already rec'd their TUV certifications. This is not inexpensive to do and unlike others, we're really doing it, not just saying it. Basically if you don't see the TUV logo w/ the serial number, it isn't real and TUV is going to have an issue with any company that falsely claims to have TUV certified products.

I'm honestly disappointed with the level of quality that American based manufacturers are supplying to the market. It is frankly shameful and irresponsible, not to mention the safety and liability concerns. It simply doesn't do any of us any good. Companies like BBS and Champion are not included in this group of course. They do it the right way and we're proud to compete against companies that share a philosophy for providing high quality products. It keeps all of us pushing forward.

So I can only ask that you contact us directly. I've seen a lot of "experts" cropping up on 6-speed lately and while they may sound like they know what they're talking about, they should leave the engineering talk to real engineers. The challenge for all of you is to figure out how to decipher fact from fiction and technical talk from sales talk. Anyone that has met us here at HRE, knows how we do business and our commitment to our team, partners, product and most of all our customers. It isn't just marketing BS here. It is simply how we operate. Let's also be very clear. I'm not saying we're perfect and we haven't struggled at times, but I think we'll all agree that HRE goes above and beyond to take care of any issues that do arise and our direction has always been to be moving forward; doing it the right way, doing it the hard way.

In the end, all you need to do is talk to us before you make up your mind about us. You'll find us refreshingly different.

Sincerely,

Alan Peltier
COO, HRE Performance Wheels

760-598-1960
alanp@hrewheels.com

 

Alan - Perfect response... TT, understand that if you are going to make a referance to a particular incident it is crucial to site it rather than make a vague comment like "use the search button". I immediately assummed this was the audi forum post you were refering to as well but would like to give you the chance to elaborate before giving you a fellow sponsor's point of view as to why posts like this are so frustrating (I assume you can see where I'm going with this)

 

I really like HRE wheels not only his design but the lightness and engineering of their wheels.
Today I will send some pictures of my wheels.

 

Sure Jeremy, I was referring to some pics/posts here and on rennlist a couple of yrs ago, I had never heard of the audi issue. I don't have computerese to attach links to threads.
Didn't mean to ruffle everybodies feathers, I thought it was a valid point.
BTW, I used to live just down the road from the plaza!
C

 

I can understand and assume you were making the point as to look out for the safety of other members, and that I can appreciate. The problem I have is that here, in a public forum where any member is free to post what he chooses, its quite simple for a thread to get spun negatively and other members to read between the lines and come to their own - often false - conclusions.

Without getting too involved I'd just like to add that we here at iA both install and come across HRE's on a regular basis and have never had a problem with them. This can also be said for Champion, BBS, Avus etc... I'm not picking favorites, simply trying to keep a thread on the topic at hand. Modifying your wheels in ANY way other than how the original manufacturer intended is dangerous to say the least. If you need a different setup go back to the drawing board and have a new set built - would you rather your car have a "Wheel-Chair" stance or you and a passenger for the rest of your life?

 

Hello TT,

The posts you are referring to and the Audi post are all the same issue. They just originated on one of the Audi forums. This is partially why we became active in the forums. They are a great place to share information. We just want to make sure the info is accurate.

As Alan said if anyone ever has any questions, please call or visit our facility any time.