I went to a local dealer today to have brand new 17x8 Oettinger REs mounted with Toyo T1-Ss. When they set the tire wheel/combination up on the balance machine, the machine-indicated wheel weights were almost 4 ounces - two to three times higher than normal for an alloy wheel. This was the case with all four wheels, which were perfectly straight. They also tried several different tires including the OEM REO40s - same results. As a final step, they mounted a wheel on the machine without a tire and the indicated weights were 1 ounce on the inner flange, 4 ounces on the outer flange - unacceptable for reliable balance in their view.

By the way, this is an excellent local tire and wheel specialist that does custom wheels all day long. They ended up returning the wheels to the distributer and I'm back to ground zero on a wheel choice.

Any ideas on what could be going on?

Thanks in advance

I'm too lazy to get on my hands and knees to look at the inner lip, but if memory serves, the string of weights that adds up to 3 oz was the bad one.

It struck me as odd, but I never questioned it. I'm with Wagonboy, send the wheels back, tell them about the problem, and hopefully, they'll do some checking before they mail out the next set.