Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

What are everyone's thoughts on the cheaper Chinese wheels like Injora vs paying top dollar for something like Lockedup wheels?

Are wheels worth investing in? Or are there better areas to spend that chedda?

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

right now cheap aluminum wheels are cheaper than plastic wheels and they dont warp or bend and the hub screws dont pull through
the worst thing about the cheap aluminum wheels is every once and a while a screw will strip out but thats the worst that i can see happening and thats not a hard fix

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

They certainly get the job done, I’ve owned many sets with no issues.

I’ve moved away from buying them for the most part, though, mostly because I don’t like supporting knock off companies.

If I were in the market for less expensive wheels, I’d get some from SSD.


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Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I have a mix of both... some brand name wheels and some chinessium special ... in my experience both have served well there is obvious difference is in the detail of some of the brand name like chamfered and tapered edges. anodizing quality, material quality. it all depends on what style of wheel you are looking for some are designs horrendous and out of scale but you will be surprised with some that are great quality and finish. All in all at this scale I doubtfully think that you will experience any fails or broken wheels unless you are doing some mayor jumps, likely everything else on the truck will fail first. Its all preference if you want the extra detail but it also comes in a price $$$ vs $$... A set of VPs can cost you towards 200 if you want some detail on them while sometimes you can pick about 4 sets of chinessium sets for that. Don't use Loctite regardless.

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I would also say, it depends on your planned usage. If the vehicle they're going on will just be used for basic trail crawling...nothing that's going to seriously test the 'strength' of the wheels...then the cheaper material should be "good enough". But, if you'll be doing any extreme crawling, climbing difficult 'cliffs', etc, it could prove well-worth it to invest in wheels made from higher quality materials. I haven't had any problems with the cheap wheels, themselves...but, like others, the screws have caused problems, either because the screws were also cheap (ie. they snapped, leaving most of the screw embedded in the wheel), or because they stripped the threading inside the wheel.


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Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I have 17 rigs, and not a single one of them is fitted with "quality" wheels. They're all Amazon-sourced, and the sum total of problems is that I've stripped out maybe 4-5 screws out of... lord, who knows. Some of them have 28 screws per beadlock ring.

If you want something all-out full custom, then by all means, go for it. If you want something to keep your tires attached to your rig, there's absolutely no reason to spend $100+ on a set of toy car wheels.

I lean heavily toward the steel SSD clones (sold under a dozen names, about $30 a set) and this style of Hotstorm alloy beadlocks, as both are heavy and offer reasonable offsets.

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I primarily run amazon wheels as well, and have no problems. Every once in a while I lose a beadlock screw (mostly my fault probably for not loc-titing every set when I put them together)

I've also been running the injora scale hardware on em with no issues. Only name brand wheels I've got are a set of plastic element methods (wanted the gold for and tacoma build) a set of tamiya humvee glue ons (mostly for there offset) and some plastic vanquish kmc machetes (came on a rig i bought) and they're not really a proper comparison to the al amazon wheels.

Never broken one, never stripped a hub, no Real Problems ever. If I were rich I'd maybebuy some ssd wheels or something,but still don't think I'd feel happy with vanquish at there prices.

Lockedup on the other hand make such nice and also more unique wheels that I think would be worth the high price.

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I can tell you that I only run locked up rc wheels. When locked up rc says easy mount they aren’t kidding. Never had an issue mounting any tire to their wheels. The only company I feel rivals them in looks (can’t comment on quality as I don’t own a set) is vision rc. I don’t run any knock offs. I hate having someone do the hard work only for someone to copy it.

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

Well I’ve run most.RC4WD , SSD Injora. PitBull or hyrax tires. All mount well and don’t drop beads. Fit and finish is all even https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...9565eee463.jpg
Chanquish on my Vanquish


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Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I personally don’t understand the hate on the Injora beadlocks. They are great wheels for under $50 for a whole set. I’ve owned 2 sets SSD wheels, 2 sets of RC4WD wheels and I don’t see a difference that justifies spending double on them. What I do understand is supporting well known companies like SSD over Injora but like one guy above said he has 17+ trucks and that’s a lot of freakin money for just wheels lol.

Now on a 1:1, I would fork out the extra for name brand wheels & tires for strength/longer life purposes, but that’s a totally different story. In 1/10 scale with a maximum of 15lbs on them, strength isn’t a worry IMO. At the end of the day on these tiny trucks steel wheels are steel wheels no matter who makes them.

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I don’t think anybody that’s owned knock off wheels could really be mad about anything considering the price. They work fine, and most look damn good.

My issue is supporting companies that don’t actually contribute to the hobby. Unfortunately that’s getting harder and harder to avoid, and not just in rc.

I’m pretty sure SSD makes their wheels in China, and for sure rc4wd does. I don’t mind supporting them because they are actually designing (I use that loosely for rc4wd [emoji23]) new products for our hobby.

But I don’t have any beef with people buying cheap wheels, I still own knock off roosts even.

I’m fortunate that I’m able to have the luxury of primarily owning vp wheels.


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Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

Personally I have both cheap and pricey wheels. The expensive stuff is more for the actual scale (many are licensed like method and black rhino) specific matter. O have 0 complaints about the cheap wheels, only difference I have found is quality of the hardware for them. Cheap stuff often uses mix of bottom rejects and ok hardware so strip one head and the next 3 are fine. Gets annoying because also the tolerance for a given hex key is all over the place (making stripping some really easy sometimes).

Injora seems to be a happy median. Little bit more consistent than others. But no uniform design between their wheels so compatibility with other things becomes a headache. Where as something like SSD, their other parts fit exactly as claimed and perfect every time.

Want full scale branded look, buy the brands. Just need solid wheels that still look good but need to stay on a budget, cheap wheels are great, save the coin for things like better servos and tires.

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Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I've been using a lot of ChangQuish eBay wheels for a long time. No problems with them whatsoever

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

The thing about Injora, is they are no different than Integy.
Not only do they not support any rc stuff, including in their home country of China, they are just resellers. They make nothing but sales.

Which is why you'll find the very same items for sale by other 'companies' on all the sites. Injora again like Integy, is just spending more money and has a wider reach out of China. I'd rather give it to an unknown reseller when buying the cheap Chy-na gear. Of course one that is at least verified and has decent reviews on product arriving, fitting, etc...

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

SSD gives you measurements on their website and fit both Vanquish and SSD hubs. So if I am buying sight unseen I am getting SSD.

If I can check out the wheel before I buy it to make sure it fits the right way I doesn't matter to me, as long as it isn't plastic.

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

alot of talk about knock off designs but there hasent been any real design change in wheels since the 60s even method wheels are basicly knock offs of older designed wheels and adding a bead lock ring dosent make it a new design so i dont care about licensing or anyof that cause the ones issueing the licence just copyed someone elses design anyway
i would like to suport american made but i dont have the money
so chanquish it is

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I tend to agree with this observation.

I buy wheels from SSD, VP ,GMade and RC4WD but will also buy the changuish stuff. The hobby is expensive and see no reason to drop 200 CDN dollars on toy wheels. Better to invest that in good gears and axles, in my opinion.

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

I'd love a set of those deep dish wheels made in russia, but $200 is a lot for me to fork over for them. Would be nice if injora made a set.

For my budget I usually get knockoffs or if I want to feel like I am "fully" completing a build I'll get SSD.

Yo SSD, make some 2.2 brass internal lock rings please!!

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

Companies like ourselves support not only the hobby here in the US by sponsoring events, groups and drivers ... but even this forum.

We innovate because we have experience in the 1:1 world. We bring that to the parts we design for you guys helping to achieve a higher level of scale realism. We don't copy things on purpose. We use quality materials. All our employees are safe (and over 18 ) and we aren't dumping shit into the environment. We are meeting US restrictions and regulations and pay taxes here.

We have support staff you can email or talk to if there is an issue ... that speak English.

So, we hope you will choose to support an American company that supports you back.



I also want to mention that I do think some of our options are pretty affordable all things considered.
Our cheapest 8L 1.9" wheel packages start around $100 if you use our bundler and select standard hardware.
8L:
https://www.lockeduprc.com/19-8L-Com...er-_p_320.html

IIRC that's about $40 cheaper than some others.

We also make everything a la carte.
So between wheels, rings, hardware, inserts, etc... you have millions of final combinations to choose from!
Parts are also individually replaceable.
So if you thrash something you aren't shit out of luck.
"thumbsup"

Re: Cheap Chinese Wheels
 

Love my Locked up RC Rims!


They hold a bead on Proline tires too!

https://i.imgur.com/BMD0hnMh.jpg