[PICS] - My Wife's Nissan has GONE PINK!! (17" Konig Wheels)

[Shaka]

First off some specs/details for those who might want to know....

WHEELS
- Brand: Konig
- Name/Style: Forward
- Color: White with Pink Stripe
- Size: 17x7"
- Bolt Pattern: Dual-drilled 5x100 & 5x114.3
- Weight: 18 lbs
- Design: 1pc Cast
- Purchased from Amazon (LINK)

TIRES
- Brand: Continental
- Name/Style: ContiProContact
- Size: 215/45R17
- Type: Grand-Touring All-Season
- Mud & Snow (M+S) Rated
- LRR (Low Rolling Resistance) Rated
- Weight: 21 lbs
- UTQG: 400 AA A
- Purchased from Tire Rack (LINK)

OTHER HARDWARE
- Hub Centric Rings (73.1mm OD to 66.1mm ID) - Purchased from Amazon (LINK)
- NRG M12x1.25 Extended Lug Nuts (Aluminum 400 Series Pink - Part # LN-471PK) - Purchased from Amazon (LINK)
- 315MHz Tire Pressure Sensors - Purchased from Tire Rack
- Mr Gasket #2370 7/32 Wheel Spacers (for front clearance) - Purchase from local auto parts store

AND NOW ... onto the story/explanation ....

Late in December (2012) we picked up a 2012 Nissan Leaf SL for my wife/I to drive daily. We commute to work together and we've been loving the EV. Since the winter here in Ohio can be harsh we decided to get Bridgestone Blizzak snow tires to put on the car. This way we can also keep the stock Ecopia tires to put back on the car right before the lease is up, and not worry about tire wear (no lease penalty). From the start we planned to use the original factory wheels for snow tires/winters and buy a set of summer wheels/tires. Ohio's snow-belt weather makes great justification for this plan.

When the time came to shop for wheels my wife wanted a say, so I started looking for inexpensive options in a plus-one size. Like any girl, she loves pink and purple... so these were an instant hit. Thanks to being an Amazon Prime member, free shipping made the cost of these items relatively inexpensive. Total invested comes in at just under $1600 when you add in local mounting/balancing and all the hardware listed above. Seems like a fair price for a setup that I've never seen on any other Leaf on these boards, so that has me rather excited. Granted our demographic may be mostly male so who knows. Never the less, my wife is ecstatic with how this all turned out.

For those curious, due to the tight openings for the lugs you have to use extended nuts like this. Once we figured that out of course Pink made the most sense. The ones used are aluminum so they are nice light weight. And they really give the car that tuner/girlie look the wife wanted! As for the spacers in the front, those are necessary because the center cap didn't clear the axle nub sticking through the center -- it interfered with the center caps only. The wheels otherwise fit fine-- but to allow for center caps I had to add those up front.

Attached are a bunch of photos of the car taken this evening. The only question I'd have for the folks here would be with regards to the TPMS. Just for yucks I decided to not reset the TPMS using the ATEQ tool that I bought yet-- waiting to see if/when the dash light would come on. (I've already pre-loaded the ATEQ tool so ti is ready to go). However after over 10 miles of driving the TPMS light has still not illuminated. How long does it usually take before the car will look and sense that the TPMS "codes" of the units being used are not the right set and throw up the light?

Total weight with the OEM wheels and Blizzak tires: 43.0 lbs (using bathroom scale accurate to only 1/2 lb increments)
Total weight with the Konig wheels and Conti tires: 40.5 lbs (hence a 5% savings, approx 2.5 lbs per corner over what we had been using)
Should be interesting to see how the car drives long-term. I suspect we will not lose any efficiency over the winter setup, and will hopefully find this is more like the OE setup for people. We were complacent with our winter efficiency, and suspect summer will be MUCH better now!

Attached are just SOME of the photos.... if you want to see all 26 that I took tonight check out here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/104267274342509066610/albums/5871333680723500593?authkey=COD-grHt4dHaugE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Enjoy!!! :twisted:

 

[leafwing]

Very nice.

 

[Stoaty]

I don't generally care about mods to dress up a Leaf, but I have to say this looks really classy. Great job!

 

[JimSouCal]

+1 Like all that. Fun too!

 

[vrwl]

OMG, I love this!!! Matches my license plate!

 

[TonyWilliams]

I can't say that I'm a big fan of aluminum lug nuts (for safety), but looks interesting. Thanks for posting.

 

[eglee413]

looks different, i like it. drop that sucker. haha

 

[Shaka]

looks different, i like it. drop that sucker. haha

Yeah now that the summer kicks are on I really want to lower it. Wonder if my wife would mind hahah...

 

[ELROY]

Let us know how the efficiency is affected, road noise, and handling!

 

[Shaka]

I can't say that I'm a big fan of aluminum lug nuts (for safety), but looks interesting. Thanks for posting.

That was my concern too. We had bought a set of pink painted steel lugs that didn't fit (too large dia) so when I found these but noted alum I did reading. I've heard mixed reviews, apparently pre-89 Porsche used alum and such. But when I found that places like Gorilla make alum lugs (LINK) that made me feel a bit more secure. I trust brands like Gorilla and McGard to only make decent products. Sadly the ones I have are not either of those brands, but still at least being alum seems more legit.

What have you heard? From what I read, the Porsche PCA club doesn't allow alum lugs for race track events. But as our car rarely sees the freeway let alone 'fast driving' I felt fairly secure. I'll be sure to not over-torque etc.... But any thoughts/feedback you have always appreciated.

Let us know how the efficiency is affected, road noise, and handling!

Thus far I would say that at LOW speeds the whirr of the snow tires is gone, and at 40mph and 70mph type speeds the pitch is different on the new tires, less noise, but not as quiet as the Ecopia tires I would assume (we only put about 200 miles on our Ecopia tires and that was over 90 days ago). The handling is far better but compared to snow tires that is not quite fair. Less sidewall, so the turn-in feels great (BTW I have run my snows AND these summers at approx 38psi cold at all four corners). I've only managed 20 miles thus far... so I will be SURE to report back in a few weeks!

 

[DaveEV]

I like it!

You should try painting the blue Nissan emblems using pink Plastidip - I think it'd really bring the theme together!

 

[TonyWilliams]

What have you heard? From what I read, the Porsche PCA club doesn't allow alum lugs for race track events. But as our car rarely sees the freeway let alone 'fast driving' I felt fairly secure. I'll be sure to not over-torque etc.... But any thoughts/feedback you have always appreciated.

It's just a bad idea in general. Even aluminum wheels with steel lugs have issues, as the AL expands and contracts at different rates. One of the Tesla Model S cars at our meeting last week had a finger tight lug nut (that's with AL wheels and steel bolts and lugs).

Putting an AL nut on a steel bolt is two different metals expanding at different rates. I would check the torque frequently. Secondly, and most importantly, those AL nuts do not have the strength of steel in the same size as a steel lug nut. They will strip out easier if overtorqued (that means a guy with an air powered impact gun rattling on them) and they will wear out faster from use.

In general, I have never been a fan of style trumping solid design for any product. The Fisker Karma is a classic car example. It may be fine for what you're doing, but there's little doubt in my mind that the safety margins are diminished.

 

[DaveEV]

One of the Tesla Model S cars at our meeting last week had a finger tight lug nut (that's with AL wheels and steel bolts and lugs).

I suspect that lug simply wasn't torqued properly - he had his wheels powder coated a few days earlier.

 

[Shaka]

In general, I have never been a fan of style trumping solid design for any product.

Totally agree with you there, but I should clarify how this all happened. Originally we ordered the wheels and THESE LUGS for the car. Those are steel and a pink coating, but again, steel. When I first went to install the wheels a few weeks ago they didn't fit. Because these wheels are dual-drilled the "openings" where the lug nuts go are only about 9/10ths diameter. When I realized these new lugs were too big at the base (end of taper), I tried the stock nuts. The stock lugs are just shy of an inch diameter at the largest spot.

Ultimately it was the fact that I had ZERO options when I went to get these. And the material was not by choice either. These are 8/10ths diameter, so as you can see in the photos there is next to NO room left on the outside. I have found that Gorilla makes a kit of black steel ones (LINK) that might work. But as I cannot find where they have the outer diameter listed I may have to buy/test/return if they do not fit. And the color won't be nearly as fun either.

Thanks for the feedback though. You do have my worrying again--- not a bad thing. But I also feel like if so many places make these, why are they still making them if the issue of safety is that big? I don't disagree about the safety issues, but so long as one exercises proper precautions I feel the issue may be a non-issue. Hmmm.... cheers!

 

[TonyWilliams]

You can paint/powder coat those steel lug nuts any color you want.

 

[ttweed]

From what I read, the Porsche PCA club doesn't allow alum lugs for race track events.

This rule is only for club racing (wheel to wheel) in PCA, largely to allow quick inspection of the thread engagement of the nut on the stud. The OEM lugnuts from Porsche have a closed top, so there is no way to visually inspect thread engagement. The Porsche (or VW) steel lugnuts have an open top, so a tech inspector can easily see that the stud is protruding from (or flush with) the top of the lugnut and thus engaged for a length at least equal to the diameter of the stud. The rule came about from people using wheel spacers to widen their track without installing longer studs to insure adequate thread engagement. Plenty of Porsches run DE and autocross events using the original, stock, forged and anodized aluminum lug nuts that Porsche supplied on all their cars for decades. Safety fears over properly manufactured and installed aluminum lug nuts are overblown, IMHO. I have used them for over 15 years on a variety of Porsches that were run hard on nearly every race track in CA with race compound rubber (putting more stress on the wheel assembly than you will ever see on a Leaf) with zero problems. I have seen aluminum wheel centers fail before the lug nuts. As long as they are made from a high strength forged aluminum alloy (Al 6061-T6 or 7075-T6 has a very good strength to weight ratio compared to mild steel), torqued properly after starting carefully by hand (not cross-threaded), with a dab of anti-seize on the threads, I would have no qualms using them on the Leaf.

YMMV,
TT

 

[supra410]

Not a fan of pink simply because I'm not a woman, but I'm sure my wife would dig it. Overall, nice look. The pink plastidip with the badges seems like a cool idea. I can already imagine my wife telling you to put vinyl pink flames on it. If my wife made our leaf look like this. She'd make me go buy a box of tampons in that thing.