I have had 3-piece SSR GT3 wheels on my car for more than a year now, and so far no problems. No air leaks from the silicone bead seal, no bent wheels, etc. I always hear about how 3-piece wheels leak air, but suprisingly, they hold air better than the OEM monoblock wheels that came with the car. I rarely have to top up air in them, where as with the OEM wheels, I had to top up a few lbs pretty much every month.

My question are, is it possible to break the silicone seal if you hit a bad pothole, and therefore cause a leak? And also, when you put new tires on, do you need to have the silicone seal redone (which seems like a pain because you have to take the wheel apart), or can the tire installer just throw on the new tire?

Thanks in advance.

 

You will not damage the whole wheel unless you are in a pretty bad accident. If you hit a pothole or something you may bend the lip on the inside or outside but the center should be fine.
You should not have a problem mounting and dismounting tires as well, as long as the installer does not damage the silicon when dismounting you would not have a problem with leaking. Let me know if you have any other questions...

 

Hey thanks. I was starting to think that 3-piece wheels are so much of a pain, was gonna sell my SSRs to go with a monoblock wheel for conveniences sake. LOL. Thx again for answering my questions.

 

The comments Kensill mentioned are correct...if you hit a pot hole hard enough the inner and outer will absorb the damage...if you hit it hard enough the air will escape immediately through the colapse of the rims at the tire bead before losing any air at the assembly bead seal. In most cases the center will survive, and the rims would need to be replaced. This is one selling point for 3pc wheels is that you can damage a wheel and be able to replace a component rather than be hit with a full cost of a whole new wheel.

In many cases where assembly bead seals leak, it is many times from installers not being careful and they poke a seal with a tire bar when trying to mount or dismount the low profile tires...sometimes certain tires have stiff side walls that make the installer really have to work hard to remove or mount and this is when that risk comes up.

Sometimes having too much silicone on a seal can also cause room for error, the seal only needs to be enough to rest in the assembly flange, if you have an over amount of silicone spread out that is where your chances of it lifting and making an air pocket can happen...on our website we show a production video and you can see a silicone machine that we use to seal our wheels to give you the idea of how much area is needed to properly seal the wheels.

I hope this information is useful.

Jim