Went out and washed the truck today and found a 6" crack in the front right wheel. These are the 20" OEM Ford wheels that came with the "Chrome Package" in 2006. 6" Crack runs "spoke to spoke" and parallel with the edge and about an inch from the stem and an inch from the edge of the wheel.
There was no road hazzard such as hitting a curb or something in the road I can think of that could have caused it. New tires were installed over the summer and driven less then 10k miles since. Wondering if it could have been stressed during installation when the tires were installed?
Tire is still holding air, but I'm looking for a new wheel asap. Might put on the spare in the mean time.
Anyone know why this could have happened and where I can find a replacment besides paying top dollar for a new OEM 20" wheel from Ford? I checked Ebay and CL and none listed at the moment. Might have to just keep looking.
I planned on going to 18" wheels next summer being I pull a heavy 5th Wheel toy hauler and the 20's adversely lower the final gear ratio and are heavier. But before switching I have 4 fairly new 20" Goodyear Wrangler AT's that should last another 25k-30k miles.

What y'all think?

 

I would remove that rim ASAP! That is not only a danger to you, but also a danger to the other drivers around you!

 

I would install the spare immediately and not drive on that rim.

 

Odd place for a crack.

I have cracked an aluminum rim from hitting a pothole, but you will usually see that damage along the lip.

How long ago were the Goodyear Wranglers installed? Is it possible the rims were damaged from the tire installation?

 

Good catch, while that forged wheel is pretty strong. It's much better that you found it while washing vs it coming apart while driving. As others have said, please remove that wheel from your truck before driving it another foot. It's just not safe.

There are all sorts of causes that we can speculate on. Like damage from a road hazzard or damage from improperly dismounting or mounting tires or an inherent defect in the raw wheel forging blank or bad wheel design or well that's all I got. Nothing useful that's for sure. But you might want to talk with Ford about this one. I would bypass your local dealer and go directly to Ford and request that engineering check this one out. There could be more then meets the eye on this one. I'm an engineer and failure analsys is one of the many things I've "enjoyed" doing over the years.

Hope you find an easy resolution to this.

 

No worries. I installed the spare before leaving for work this morning. Brrrrr.
Just glad I found time yesterday to wash the truck and discovered the crack.
The tires were installed August 1st. I washed the truck 6-8 weeks ago and didn't notice a crack then.
I stopped by the Ford dealer today where a buddy is a mechanic for 25 years and he has never seen a rim crack like this before. He could only guess that it was stressed when the tire was installed, and a good jolt made it crack. The tire shop denies they did anything wrong and said the tire machine would of left a mark. They've installed 4 sets of these Goodyears on this truck and always b*tch about it being a PITA. I know they install tires on a few other Superduties with 18's and 20's also. Good guys I hate to place blame on.

All I know is I need a new wheel now and this wheel is hard to find used.
Ford wants $1025 new....you think it's gold plated?!?!?
A few auto recyclers searched their data bases and came up empty.
Nothing on Fleabay or CL.
Best I have found is this which looks the same, but it is listed as 20"x8" and I measured my stock wheel @ 9" wide.
Ford Superduty Pickup 20" x 8" Alloy Wheel Sales - Buy 2006_2007 Ford Superduty Pickup POLISHED; 5 SPOKE at discount price!

I may just get a set of 18" Ford wheels. Plenty of them around. And sell these wheels individually and maybe break even. Or wait till one pops up and sell the set.
If anyone has a source, please let me know. 20" x 9" OEM Ford polished-aluminum forged wheel that came with the chrome package in 2006.

SVT, I saw your post after I posted and that is a good idea. You never know what a failure analsys might find or what could come of it. If they want the wheel, they can have it... lol

Thanks

 

Here ya go brother. A used one of your wheels for $300. However, I would send him a message and offer him like $200 or less. There is no way that rim is worth $300.
Also, there is no way the tire shop did that. That is just a stress fracture... that baby finally gave in.
2008 F250 20" OEM WHEEL - eBay (item 330409152901 end time Dec-24-10 09:30:09 PST)

 

Suprisingly enough, when I was in search of a set of OEM 20s, you would not believe the sets of "3" I found with the 4th cracked IDENTICAL to this. As a matter of fact, my oem harley wheels I bought, the 4th was cracked identical to this, had to buy a single wheel to make a set of 4. Seems to be a pretty common problem with these oem 20's.

 

Man, that's not very reassuring.

LAX, Thanks for the link. Will do. I only searched Ford superduty 20" wheel. Good find and thanks for helping a brother in need.

On Edit: The wheel is gone an hour after the post. Maybe a lurker here grabbed it. Snooze you loose. The search continues.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2008-...Q5fAccessories

 

I would buy the oem 20" harley superduty set on ebay for the 1200, get my tires mounted , and then sell the 3 rims piece by piece to get some of the money back. I would simply bail on that style asap.

 

Im with stv on this one.. Call and tell them of your find on the web with this issue and The numerous people having the same thing happen. There has to be more to it. The rim my just be too thin at that area for the weight of our trucks.

 

Had a blowout yesterday and found ANOTHER one of my OEM 20" wheels has a crack!
This time it's a 1.25" crack from the edge running under the bead.
I'm not sure if the crack caused the tire to loose enough preasure to cuase the blowout or if the crack was caused by the blowout.
Two cracked wheels. Is this coincidence or just bad luck?
Anyone else seeing this problem with Ford 20" Aluminum wheels?

 

Had a blowout yesterday and found ANOTHER one of my OEM 20" wheels has a crack!
This time it's a 1.25" crack from the edge running under the bead.
I'm not sure if the crack caused the tire to loose enough preasure to cause the blowout or if the crack was caused by the blowout.
Two cracked wheels. Is this coincidence or just bad luck?
Anyone else seeing this problem with Ford 20" Aluminum wheels?

 

If you had 2 of them crack already, I would contact Ford Motor Company direct. There might be a "hidden recall" that covers your wheels. A hidden recall is one that is corrected only if the vehicle owner complains about it.


RON

 

Wow, blowouts on the steering axle are scary - glad you're ok! Hard to tell what happened there, looks like the sidwall separated though so I'm not sure the crack could have caused it. Maybe a bad tire and the crack happened in the process? Hard to tell though w/ so much going on at the same time. Regardless, 2 would be enough for me, I'd be jumping to 18"s ASAP. It's been a couple years since your original post, the tires are surely about worn by now...and one certainly needs replaced regardless.

My steel rims are ugly but I've never been worried about them cracking. There's lots of aluminum rims though, I can't believe they're all that bad, maybe just the 20"s, or the older 20"s?