No center cap retention in brand new Minilites

[71TR6]

Hello forum-
I need some advice from the forum. A few months ago, I purchased a set of authentic new Minilites for my 71TR6. It took a couple of months before I got around to mounting them and when I did, I discovered the center caps were very loose in the wheel. I took some measurements and discovered the caps are about 0.010-0.015" undersize from the centerbore of the wheel. If I ran the wheels with these loose caps, the caps would end up being beaten to crumpled pieces of aluminum. As a result, I've been driving without them.

It is my understanding that these caps normally have a press-fit into the bores and that is adequate retention but that's not the case with these. I could glue/RTV them in but that would mean destroying them if I ever need new tires or need to get my wheels rebalanced. I've placed multiple emails/calls to the Minilite supplier I bought these from but haven't gotten a return call from him. I guess I'm on my own with an apparent quality problem with these wheels or caps. Needless to say, I'm a little disappointed since I could have paid half as much for some knock-off minilite-style wheels and probably not had a problem with them.

Has anyone else experienced this problem and if so, what is the fix?

I appreciate any and all feedback on this.

Thanks,
Ron W

 

[TR4nut]

Ron-

I don't have true Minilites, but I did buy the knockoffs and had some fitting issues when I put my own style center caps on the wheels. The low tech, but successful solution for me which has worked 3+ years was to use some thin strips of duct tape on the center caps to get a tighter fit. Pretty easy to adjust, and once they are tight, they don't go anywhere and no evidence of the tape going bad over time. Like I said, low tech, so just don't tell anyone at the car show!

Randy

 

[PC]

Hmm. The caps that came with the Minilites we got (a few years back) for our MINI came with plastic caps that fit perfectly.

I wonder why they changed them?


pc.