Posted by Roger's answer for Mr P on October 04, 1999 at 13:06:32:
In Reply to: reversing the rims posted by Mr. Parsegian on September 27, 1999 at 01:44:11:
Mr. P.
I read your question and the replies again and I can see why your question was miss understood. It appears you meant to say that some people use rims called "reversed rims" which have a significant different amount of offset and you wanted to know if this was a good practice or not.
Dave and I thought that you ware asking about taking a wheel and mounting it backward ( inside out / reversing / whatever) on the car which is almost impossible.
"Reverse" rims with large amounts of negative offset are not good for bearing life as it places the load center far away from the bearing design load center. This practice could eventually cause bearing or related part failure.
If you assume that no failure has occured the negative affect on tires is a change in the scrub radius and some affects due to strange alignment changes in the extreme cases. I would expect to see rapid or uneven wear.
Are we correct to assume that you are a lawyer or working for a lawyer working on a case involving a tire / wheel failure and are looking for a cause or someone to blaim? If so please contact me as I have some experience as an expert witness.
tireman9@xhotmail.com < remove the x