18" Rotor reps review (photo heavy)

[dannyh1991uk]

Iv recently brought some Rotor replica wheels and thought id give sort of a review as looking through various threads on here there are a lot of people on replica rims.

The rotors i brought were satin gunmetal grey from a website called TA Alloys. (£360 plus £25 delivery)

Wheels came nicely boxed and packaged





Then i had to find some decent tyres that wouldn't break the bank i found some decent tyres with above average reviews online and impressive EU ratings...

Tyre Size- 225/40/R18



BF Goodrich G-Grip (made by Michelin) ... ATL priced them @ £101 fully fitted but i found a local supplier and got them £315 for the 4 tyres... And got a family friend to get the tyres fitted and balanced.



The tyre fitter did have difficulty balancing and also counter balancing one of the wheels ... (I will mention this later.)

Before fitting the nice new wheels to my A3 i decided to weigh the new overall wheel and compare it to the weight of the Sport wheels currently on my A3.

18" Rotor Rep (22kg?)-


17" Sport Original (22kg also?)-




So i set on putting the new wheels onto the car -






Really pleased with the wheels and also the tyres, the ride feels a lot better overall and the tyres are actually really good when accelerating/braking, feels a lot sharper (although yet to drive in the wet).

(Has anyone got a recommendation of what PSI i should now use on 18"s???)

Iv been on the motorway a few times and everything feels ok ride wise, although i can feel vibration at around 75mph i am disappointed about this because i do a bit of motorway driving back and forth to see the girlfriend (motorway is quickest and most simple route)... I will email the place i brought them hoping to get the one wheel replaced as i suspect its the one that was difficult to balance (160g in total, balanced and counter balanced)... Apart from this i am happy with them

One section of weights on the rear drivers side wheel (culprit wheel?)"-

 

[weve33]

Good review! I'm after a set of these alloys for my s3 but always wondered if replicas are any good.

 

[T8DPR]

best way to cure the vibration on the motorway... slow down by 5mph

 

[Jackx1]

Shame about the vibration, puts me of replicas! I always set the cruise at 77-78 that way I'm very unlikely to get done! I'm sure you'll get it sorted. Looks good tho!

 

[Lukeyb]

That's one thing I've always found with reps, they take so much counter weight to balance

 

[makster1978]

look good can tell the diffrence compared to the originals which have fatter arms and don't look as aggressive,much better version yours more concave like the ttrs 19s,i think they would look much better if you dropped it a bit iv already done this and looking into getting a set but in black gloss with polished edges to go with the paint

 

[dannyh1991uk]

Yeah iv noticed how the concave differences are. And the car overall has settled a bit now after having it up on the jack but would look nice lowered

Hopefully the balancing gets sorted with that one wheel and sorts it out lol bit disappointed with that, i could slow down a fraction but 70-77ish is about the right driving range and its knowing they should work faultless without having to change driving style lol

I'll give them an email tomorrow,
Thanks for the compliments

 

[Marshy]

If the wheel locates properly on the hub and your using the correct bolts then I'd be looking at the tyre not the wheel.
Sometimes its worth breaking the bead of the tyre and rotating it on the rim half a turn.
This can make a noticeable difference

 

[dannyh1991uk]

Marshy i just had to ask somebody what you meant by "breaking the bead" lol... Another interesting point is if the tyre place inflated all wheels the same.

I dont know what these 18" wheels are recommended to be inflated to... I think the back of the fuel cap only gives up to 17" wheels.... If i remember right 34psi front, 36psi rear, or vice-versa

 

[grchmason]

just swap the front to the back easy lol!!!

 

[dannyh1991uk]

Nah the tyre place wrote on the tyres which to use at front and which on back, suggested that the one rim with lots of weights balancing and counterbalancing should go on the rear... Firstly gunna check pressures lol

 

[Sayam]

Looks nice, are you going to lower the car?


I use 39/36 psi front/rear. Book value is 42/36

 

[MattKeating]

Are you using any spacers with those?

 

[TomL83]

Iv recently bought my Audi A3 sportback and on 225/40/18 tyres I use 39psi in the front and 35psi in the rear

 

[dannyh1991uk]

Sorry for the late reply, been busy at work and stuff lately.

Matt i havent got any spacers on there, the offset of the wheels is 45 though.

Checked the tyre pressures nd they were all on 27psi so upped the PSI in the tyres to the recommended above... (Feels firmer now lol)

Unsure now wether to blame the balancing :/ ... In the week had to go to Cheltenham for work and was given a vauxhall insignia where that apparently flat part of M5 (past frankly services) seemed quite similar... I need to test it out on a different road lol

 

[FranA3]

they look like very good replica wheels, im running replica wheels on mine and thinking about some new ones soon , these look very promising

 

[RustyBucket]

I had an interesting chat with my mechanic on Friday about the tyre pressures. I was having the 4 wheel alignment done on my 2006 S3 on 225x40x18 and had set all the tyre pressures before hand, 39 front and 30 rear as stated on the inside of the petrol cap. He then went around the car checking and adjusting then and I asked him why as I'd just done them. He reckoned the fronts we too high and that although the petrol cap states the figures for 3 people and a piece of luggage how often do you have that number of people in the car, usually its one. He also said that in his experience that inflating the to the book value with 99% of the driving being done with one person in the car could lead to premature wear of the front tyres. He was easy about the whole thing and the way we left it was the tyres inflated to roughly 34 psi all round and just keeping an eye on them. Seems to feel and drive fine but would be interested to hear others thoughts, perhaps in a separate thread though so as not to hijack Danny's thread
Cheers

 

[jdp1962]

Danny, thanks for an excellent write-up. This is just the info I need to help me decide whether to replace the current RS4 replicas on my B7 3.0TDi with Rotors.

 

[Sayam]

Sorry for the late reply, been busy at work and stuff lately.

Matt i havent got any spacers on there, the offset of the wheels is 45 though.

Checked the tyre pressures nd they were all on 27psi so upped the PSI in the tyres to the recommended above... (Feels firmer now lol)

Unsure now wether to blame the balancing :/ ... In the week had to go to Cheltenham for work and was given a vauxhall insignia where that apparently flat part of M5 (past frankly services) seemed quite similar... I need to test it out on a different road lol

My car is 2.0 tdi and DSG. There's a lot of weight on front tyres hence the book value pressures.

If yours isn't DSG you could drop to 36 all round see how that feels?

Keep an eye on the tyres too obviously

 

[T-800]

You could take them to be load force balanced, that's what i had Stafford Audi do recently, i had a steering vibration at 70-75 mph so asked them to re-balance the wheels and the vibration has gone.
The machine does get them to rotate the tyre on the rims as necessary, they also said that the nearside front tyre was the hardest one to get right, apparently its the wheel that suffers the most front potholes/low grids that sort of thing.

 

[TDI140]

I also bought a set of 19 rotor reps as spare set for my car paid £380 with tyres ebay bargain

 

[TDI140]

Cant upload a pic for some reason keeps saying server down, also get your wheels balanced on a decent machine mate i had mine done at ETS there equipment is top quality try a well known place