Funrover previously posted:
"I prefer alloy's, the short time I had steel on the Rover was not a pleasent time. I constantly lost beads, bent up a rim, caused a pinch flat or 2 etc etc.. No thanks. My Rims on the Rover have done extremely well in the rock. thay have some rash and it shows."
Yeah, I'm not big on steel wheels myself for the stuff I do.
It's a big debate in the wheeling community and most people swear by steelies and their logic is, it doesn't break, it bends.
Flip side is, alloys are much stronger, so they don't bend that easily. And, I have yet to see a quality alloy break by rock-crawling. Faster Baja stuff where people catch 20 feet of air and land on their alloys might break them. But, at that point, I bet you have bigger issues than a broken wheel.
Either way, I drive a FJC and considering it's IFS is so delicate, my biggest reason for staying away from steelies is unsprung weight. I've seen too many busted diffs and broken axles when people throw on steelies and 35"s and end up with a 120 lbs each wheel/tire combo.
I've heard of numbers anywhere from unsprung weight equalling 4 to 10 times sprung weight. Not sure which number is right, but I bought into the whole concept way before I got into off-roading and owned faster cars. -
http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/rota...ues-46496.html
Also, quality alloys are not that easy to break. Below are pictures of an Audi I had that hit something at 150-ish MPH.