They should always use stick on weights on the inner part of the wheel for wheels with low profile tires. My 18 inch GTS wheels came with stick on weights. I have no weights on the lips of the wheels..

 

yeah, it leaves a mark as it being hammered... I annoyed me too when I picked up my car and noticed the wheel weight... but I also know that the wheels will take a lot of beating anyway... I can live with it. Just make sure stickers from now on...

 

It is avoidable, if the techs were careful. I have removed many wheel weights, even off of painted wheels, and have not scratched them or left a mark.

Remember, when you take your car in, they will never treat it the way you would. Time is of an essence when you are a tech.

Mitchsubishi(on these boards) brought painted wheels to me with clip on weights, removed em with no issues. It comes down to the tech and the tools they use.


BTW: The most optimum balance you can get is by using the clip on weights, or Road Force Balance. It costs extra, and lots of shops do not have the correct balancing machines to do it.

 

This happened to me when I got my winter tires on. I complained. They fixed the scratches and put the weights on the inside of the wheel.

 

Same problem here. We discussed this at one point in the tires & wheel forum as well, but the consensus was the same as here. Probably 95+% had major scratching when switching tires. I guess maybe if your tech is super-careful you might be able to get them off without scratching, but they still may have scratches from the original installation.

I'll be using my wheels for winter duty where they're likely to get torn up anyway, so I'm not as mad as I could have been, but it's still a ridiculous situation.

It's really Mitsubishi we should be mad at. Putting those kind of weights on a $35k car is asinine. Even your basic Civic comes from the factory with stick-on weights inside the wheel. It sounds like the base Lancer does as well. We got hosed for Mitsubishi to save a few cents a wheel, basically.

 

I still feel like the price I paid is an absolute bargain for the level of performance, even with the paint chipping and wheel problem. I'll likely do the same, keep the stockers for winter duty, and get some nice wheels for the summer.

 

If it's any consolation to you, the previous generations of sti's also used the hammer on type weights on their bbs wheels. The gold wheels with silver wheel weights looked pretty bad. Not sure if the current generation is still using the hammer on style wheel weights.

 

I took my car to America's Tire Co. because a Yokohama representative wanted to have an authorized dealer examine my tires.

When all was said and done ... they replaced 4 of my tires and left me with 3 rims that had 12-16 inch long scratches because the techs forgot to remove the wheel weights. America's Tire had my rims sent out for 2 days to get them refinished and have the tape weights put on instead ... but the place that refinished the rims did a horrible job and left scratches around the lip.

Luckily I was swapping rims for someone who wanted to go back to stock since they were trading their X in to the dealer and so they didn't care ... but if I were keeping those rims ... I would have been pissed!

 

They're not, I used to own one.