I'm looking at used wheels to dress up my new-to-me '09 F250. I see a lot of "alloy" wheels, and am wondering what the difference is between alloy and aluminum.

I'm hoping to find a set that could use a little TLC and polish them up. Is there any advantage of one over the other?

Thanks, Mark

 

IMHO, as long as they meet DOT spec, there should be very little difference.

 

Aluminum wheels are all an alloy of aluminum and other ingredients. When people say "alloy wheels" they mean aluminum and visa versa

 

I agree with ponykilr, alloy vs aluminum is the same now-a-days. 40 yrs ago when all wheels were steel aluminum wheels were "rare". now hey are the same. Also , back in the day, "mag" wheels mean magnesium. Well now mag wheels are a style, nobody would build a wheel out of magnesium.

 

So why not would nobody build wheel from magnesium??

 

Expensive, less corrosion resistance, strength and durability concerns in street use.

 

Very expensive and very high performance but mostly race cars, Indy, Formula 1, will use them. Places where every ounce of weight counts.

 

and all the shavings from it are hazardous so they have to go off to a haz-mat waste disposal site and oh the fire hazard!!!!!!!!!!! Worked in the aerospace industry.... they got rid of most mag by the laet80's/early 90's..... when they were making radar components with it, where I was at they would produce about 800 55-gallon drums a month of waste....and we did get our fair share of mag fires...eventuall we got assigned to figure our a solution which we did (before they got rid of the mag and went to Al)