- This is not a click bait title, okay?
Calm down there, bud.
It's not.
But here is the thing.
When it comes down to wheel production,
the good old boring stuff,
we get to have all the juicy details from wheel companies
and learn about how they make their wheels.
How neat is that?
One might say it's pretty neat.
And of course, BBS was the first go to company
when we started asking,
"What makes your wheels so special, huh?"
"Why they so expensive, huh?"
"How come you don't make new wheel designs, huh?"
They didn't like that last one
and then Jesse told me in a question Q&A
that we posted that it was not the right thing to say.
But, we get to ask questions like that
because, you know, it's just how we are.
How come BBS gets all the praise?
Which goes into another thing,
which by the way,
if you're looking to win a free set of BBS wheels,
we've got that.
You can pick up a T-shirt, description linked below,
automatically gets you entered in to win
a free set of performance line BBS wheels.
And we make a donation to the United Way.
Anyway, we got to talk to 'em,
and it was actually pretty nice for a change
because most people just ignore us.
And now we've opted to share
that lovely bundle of information with you,
my friends,
on the internet.
Same value as real friends.
I'm Alex, Alex.Fi on the socials,
and don't forget to subscribe
so we can keep on making lovely videos like this.
And, if you haven't subscribed,
look at what you're missing out on.
Taking it back to 1970,
little Kei Miura came into the world
and said "I wanna be a fisherman".
Which, we're just gonna rewrite history.
He actually came into the world and he said,
"I wanna make cars like super wide".
Which by the way if you're looking for BBS wheels,
they are on the old website right down,
right down there, "fitmentindustries.com".
We also got tires, suspension, Air Lift, AccuAir,
the whole thing.
Even though the sales plug is done,
I don't want you to look at that stuff
until maybe a little bit after.
Does my wrap have a bubble in it?
What the hell?
(cheesy theme music)
There's no mistake that BBS is very careful
about the wheels that they make.
Because, I mean, it's BBS.
They do it all in house.
They design in house.
They mold in house.
All of that good stuff.
But why do they care so much about it?
I mean after all, you can actually get a lot of your wheels
spec-ed and tested and all that,
all by third party stuff.
It's actually not, it's not as hard as you think
and that's why you see a lot of new wheel companies pop up.
So why would a wheel company actually care that much?
And I know, it's a loaded question,
but bare with me on this for another 10 seconds
because it's actually for a few different reasons.
And reason number one
and probably more interesting of the two
is because of Motorsport.
Now, because BBS is so heavily invested in Motorsport,
their commitment to making new wheels
and holding that same level of quality across all models
gets more difficult.
Now I know you're thinking, "Alex stop pluggin' 'em",
but there is actually a pretty neat reason
as to why they have to make good wheels,
not necessarily just because they want to make new wheels.
See, the BBS life of a wheel is a long one.
Anyway, no childish jokes. BBS.
But it's true.
BBS wheels need to be dang near perfect
from a functional standpoint
because their Motorsport lineage actually relies on it.
The same reason that Pirelli
is working their butts off on their tires for Formula 1,
is the same reason why BBS refuses to make anything less
than what they would want on their race cars,
which is pretty much just straight perfection.
You have to remember that anything
that could potentially taint a Motorsport partnership
is detrimental to their success.
If BBS messes up something on their normal street wheels,
or even on their OEM wheels,
everything comes crumbling down.
Because if you lose that
or if you lose faith in them,
what makes a wheel actually any good?
Nobody's gonna put 'em on their 200 horsepower car, son.
They're gonna go get somethin' else.
Now reason number two,
and probably the not-so-fun reason,
is because of OE compliance.
Now see, imagine that you're on the NFL and you're a star.
You're decent, you're doing good.
But then out of nowhere,
you decide it would be a marvelous idea to go to Las Vegas
and conduct in some inappropriate behavior.
This has happened before.
Next thing you know, you're tossed out of the NFL,
you can't get the goals anymore,
and the team disowned you done messed up one time.
That's the OE market for cars to it's suppliers.
You cannot allow any product
to fail in the aftermarket scene,
otherwise you're pretty much gonna get cut off
from the OE scene.
Now if you don't know this, BBS and other brands
make massive amounts of wheels for OE production,
which BBS is actually quite active in.
And when I mean "quite", I mean like extremely active in.
And a lot of those big wheel companies
are actually more heavily involved in OE markets or OE Plus
than they are in aftermarket at all
because the money and the amount of wheels
that you make is insane.
OE markets have an insanely tight threshold
for any sort of error
that makes aftermarket requirements
look like a tutorial level.
Because of those restrictions,
BBS just simply builds all of their wheels
to meet the same 10 times the OEM requirements
because it helps with security
that none of their wheels are actually going to fail
or be on the front page of Instagram,
which has happened before to other brands.
We're not going to talk about it.
However, you've seen it.
I've seen it, we've all seen it.
It's happened.
So how to they make them as strong as me?
Heh!
You like that?
I made a joke about muscles
'cause I don't have any!
But I can run super fast.
♪ Gotta go fast ♪
So how do they make 'em so strong?
Well I'm so glad you asked me.
Let me tell you.
Every BBS cast wheel is produced using low pressure casting.
We haven't talked about that in a hot minute,
but during the process it goes through heat treatment,
which kicks it a nickel to 500 degrees Celsius,
which is a lot,
but it's not Fahrenheit,
so I'm not overreacting because that's just a number
that we don't use in the United States.
And you also have to remember that low pressure casting
is different than gravity casting,
which is gonna save you a little bit of weight,
but we won't get into too much of the details.
But then. Then!
It jumps to a 90 degrees Celsius water tub
to help with the alloy to restructure
and reorder itself to strengthen the wheel.
The metal actually moves around during these heat cycles.
Now, each wheel goes through then an x-ray review
to make sure there are no inconsistencies in the metal
and a whole ton more of testing.
The biggest thing that you need to know
is almost everything that BBS is going to touch is tested.
Now, every BBS forged wheel is produced with forgings,
pressed, in BBS foundries,
using forging presses from 6000 tons to 12000 ton presses,
depending on the size of the wheels.
BBS has their own foundries.
BBS produces milled and die-forged wheels
that all start their life out at the BBS foundry.
Now, when it comes down to the forged wheels,
it's a whole other slew of things.
It goes through a fatigue test cycle,
which is about 2,000,000 cycles,
which is again, 10 times more than the OE requirement.
Now, you could ask yourself, "Why do they do it?"
It's a trick question!
They do it to be safe.
It then goes through more rotational testing.
It goes through radial fatigue testing.
It goes through biaxial load testing.
It goes through impact testing.
It goes through bead area laser testing.
Then, finally, paint.
This then allows the wheel to be tuv tested or TUV,
that's probably the better way to say it.
ECE tested, KBA and ABE tested.
And then finally, JWL tested.
Out of all those, you probably knew the two,
the one at the beginning and the one at the end.
The ones in the middle also important,
but you don't really need to know.
Once the wheels finally make it
through the end of the line and out,
they're for sale.
And they've already been tested,
probably more than you ever will actually test the wheels,
and that's probably why we see so many old BBS wheels
still being utilized and actually ran to this day.
When you think about it,
that's probably why BBS has held such a stance
in their aftermarket scene as well
So are BBS wheels the strongest wheels ever made?
Well, we can't necessarily call it
because my version of testing the strength of a wheel
besides actually taking it to a track
is going on top of our roof and maybe throwing it over.
But I like the BBS wheel that got sent to us
more than just throwing it off a, you know, roof.
So we're just going to take their word for it.
But, because there's a lot of brands out there
that take a ton of pride in their wheels,
we don't wanna just say that their the best either.
But what we will say is that it's not a coincidence
that the one company that talks about
how strong their wheels are happen to be the same wheels
that a massive chunk of the Euro scene
uses on all of their rides
even when their 20 plus year old builds.
I mean, it's not a coinkydink, all right?
It's not a coincidence that BMWs and BBS
and a lot of the racetrack cars and all of that
use a ton of BBS Motorsport wheels.
Just sayin', not a coinkydink.
It's also not a coinkydink that BBS is a premium wheel
and that they test absolutely everything.
Again, not a coinkydink.
They're probably pretty good.
So if you're in the market for aftermarket wheels,
tires, or suspension.
After the end of the day,
maybe some BBS wheels or otherwise,
be sure to check out fitmentindustries.com.
And if you haven't yet,
don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell button
so you can watch more videos
of this pearly white teeth face.
Anyway, I'm Alex.
We will see you later.
That was actually weird
when I think about teeth and smiling.
I just imagine a nightmare.
Anyway, I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
We will see you guys later.
Peace.