ATTN: Rota wheel owners.
Went to a safty stewart class today and found some info you Rota wheel owners might find important. This is an email that was sent to Howard Duncan who is head of the Program Dept at SCCA.
Today we had a Subaru break a wheel during a practice run. The wheels were Rota and the model was the Attack version. These are very popular wheels with the Subaru crowd. The wheels had cracks from the inside that showed oxidation from 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way through the broken wheel. I checked the other wheels on the car and found a slight crack with my thumbnail on the inside of the other wheel that I could make visable confirmation. On another wheel I could feel a line in the power coat, but could not see any break. After checking another car with Rota wheels, I'm almost to the point of outlawing the wheels in Houston. If possible I'd like us (nationally) to advise the regional safety stewards to check their local competitors cars with Rota whells. Something like a service bulletin, I know their could possibly be a liability issue in doing so, but the whell that came off ended up at least 10 feet up in a tree over 100 feet from the side of the course. We all know the damage, both personal and physical, that a loose whell can cause. I had a photographer take pictures of the wheel and the break points.
Official report to follow though normal channels. There was no one injured and little real damge to the car, the potential was very high though.
Mods please sticky this for a while if you could. I know theres a lot of people with Rota wheels.
Apparently from what I could gather it broke inside the hub just outside the lugs. So the hub and lugs were still attached to the rotor/car. The design for those of you unfamiliar is the standard lug design, but Rota lightens thier wheels by removing the area inbetween the lugs...almost like another bolt pattern but elongated. Not all Rota wheels have this design, but I thought I better pass this info on knowing how many of you own Rota wheels. You might never have problems with yours, but if you autox with your Rotas and have sticky tires, you might take heed
Probably just a bad batch of wheels...i heard that there was a bad batch of sub-zeros that rota was replacing.
just a combination of the lightweight wheels, a 3000lb+ car, possible defect, etc...caused the wheel to break.
I heard of forged wheels from volk and regamaster breaking also....it just happens sometimes
