Forged wheels: a privilege of the rich?

Forged wheels: a privilege of wealthy car owners?

Around the world that is indeed true, because the cost price (and correspondingly the price) of forged wheels is several times higher than the equivalent figures for cast wheels. That is exactly why forged wheels are traditionally made for premium-class cars, and for expensive sports cars. On the Russian market, however, the situation is still somewhat different: a handful of factories, which inherited very expensive equipment from the Soviet military-industrial complex, can still afford to make relatively cheap forged wheels, whose selling price on the market is sometimes ten times lower than Western equivalents.

Either way, when deciding whether to choose forged wheels for your car, you need to understand that a wheel’s real characteristics (in particular its reliability and geometric integrity) depend too heavily on the quality of the alloy and on pharmaceutical-grade precision in following the process, so you are better off avoiding wheels from manufacturers nobody has heard of, even if they are forged. From a practical standpoint, and from a safety standpoint too, it is far more reliable to buy known-quality cast wheels than forgings of unknown quality.

Further reading:

• Cast wheels: the technology, advantages and disadvantages
• Replica wheels: do you need to pay more?
• How cast and forged wheels are made: video