I‘ve purchased many sets of discount rims and tire packages
over the past 15 years and started off like a lot of people going to the tire
shop and looking at the custom wheels they offer. My first set of cheap custom wheels weren’t
exactly what I wanted, but they were aftermarket wheels none the less. It was my
second set of aftermarket wheels that really opened my eyes to getting a good deal on a set
of wheels I did really like. I went to the local Discount Tire and was looking
through the catalogs they offered on aftermarket wheels. And was asking prices every
now and again and they were all pretty expensive to me at that time. Then the associate
had a suggestion about calling the manufacturer to see if they had any factory
blems as he called them, they’re also know as factory seconds. He called and
they had a few sets of blems and they were in my bolt pattern and the price was
immediately cut in half. Now let me explain in case your new to custom wheels,
factory blems, blemished wheels, basically have a flaw in them. Most of the
time these flaws are in the chrome wheel plating. These blemishes are usually
on the face or back of the wheel and not very noticeable. That was the case
with these new chrome wheels I ended up purchasing, they had what looked like a
burn mark on the back of each rim. The chrome plating on the faces of the
wheels was perfect. That was the cheapest tire and wheel package any of my
friends in town had ever heard of for a brand new tire and wheel package. I
traded that car about 6 months later for another car, and the search was on
again for some new cheap rims.
My new car was a lowrider with
hydraulics, it already had custom wire wheels, not my favorite type of wheel, but
the smartest choice for a car with hydraulics. Since I had a lowrider I picked
up the magazine every month to see what was new on the lowride scene. In the
back of the magazine there are a lot of ads for cheap rims. Almost all
of those cheap rims in those ads were from stores in California, these wire wheels
they were selling were easily half of what the prices were at Discount Tire.
Finally I called and ordered a set of 14x7’s with tires mounted for $399 and
the shipping was about $100 (this was the late 90’s by the way, I know they’re
much cheaper now). Over the next 5 years that was how I bought my cheap rims,
out of the back of lowrider magazine. These stores would compete so much for
your business offering to beat each others prices, you could get cheap car rims
for a steal by using them against each other. The last time I bought any as a
matter fact I was getting brand new chrome tire and wheel packages for $239 with
tires mounted and balanced and shipping for $85, and yes these were knock-offs
not bolt-ons.
Now we're in the new century, so I’ve been using the internet to
track down the best deals on custom rims. I started out doing searches on
google and it led me to sites like this with some pretty good ads. But, most of the time
I was led back to the same few companies WheelsNext.com, WheelMax.com
and Ebay. Ebay was always the winner when it came to price, but to get the
cheapest overall cost I had to break up the package. I had to do this because a
lot of sellers would have a great deal on custom rims, but not on the tires and
vice versa. My first set of custom rims off Ebay were a set of chrome 24’s
without tires and they cost about $1,500 with shipping. I looked all over Ebay
but couldn’t find a great deal on tires, the shipping was a too high. I went
online to old faithful Discount Tire and they had the tires for a little more
than Ebay but they mounted them for free and their was no shipping charge. I’m
glad that I did buy those tires at Discount Tire because they came with a free
roadside warrantee, which came in handy a few times. For smaller wheel and tire
packages 22" and smaller, Ebay is the clear winner in how to buy cheap rims
and it’s how I do it to this day. I’ve bought (5) sets of custom rims off
Ebay since 2004 and would recommend them for buying cheap tire and rims.
