Method Race Wheel MR307 failure

[Stinger1]

Hello Everyone!

this is my first topic and I’m not sure where to share this, but I have 5 Broncos through my company and 1 has Method MR 307 wheels. I heard a light wobble in the front diff area Saturday and thought I’d take it to Ford on Monday. Saturday night, I’m driving the Bronco at 55-60 mph and the right front wheel fell off. I looked at it and the wheel studs sheared off. I have 26k miles on this truck. 23k with the wheels on it. Ford has serviced it from the beginning because it has a service contract. They have rotated the tires every time.

I took it to Ford and the service department told me they were not going towarranty it because the Ford hub is 93mm and the Method MR307 is 106mm.

The irony is this dealership along with every single dealer in the country is selling them and adding to new vehicles. I purchased these wheels through Discount Tire though but this shouldn’t matter. It’s the point they’re installing them at the dealer but won’t warranty the same wheel.

I just contacted Method as well and sent them info regarding this wheel. Question is, is this a fluke or could this happen to all others? If so, Method/Ford should take these off the market.

This could have been catastrophic! I was with my 16 year old son. What if I was on the freeway and the wheel fell off?

Any recommendations or suggestions are welcome!

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[Raptor911]

Glad you were not hurt BUT I am curious why you think it was the wheel that failed? It could have been that all the lug nuts were lose and because the wheels are not hub-centric, the wheel bolts would have carried the full weight of the wheel and tires and that would have sheered the bolts right off.

 

[pakrat]

Hello Everyone!

this is my first topic and I’m not sure where to share this, but I have 5 Broncos through my company and 1 has Method MR 307 wheels. I heard a light wobble in the front diff area Saturday and thought I’d take it to Ford on Monday. Saturday night, I’m driving the Bronco at 55-60 mph and the right front wheel fell off. I looked at it and the wheel studs sheared off. I have 26k miles on this truck. 23k with the wheels on it. Ford has serviced it from the beginning because it has a service contract. They have rotated the tires every time.

I took it to Ford and the service department told me they were not going towarranty it because the Ford hub is 93mm and the Method MR307 is 106mm.

The irony is this dealership along with every single dealer in the country is selling them and adding to new vehicles. I purchased these wheels through Discount Tire though but this shouldn’t matter. It’s the point they’re installing them at the dealer but won’t warranty the same wheel.

I just contacted Method as well and sent them info regarding this wheel. Question is, is this a fluke or could this happen to all others? If so, Method/Ford should take these off the market.

This could have been catastrophic! I was with my 16 year old son. What if I was on the freeway and the wheel fell off?

Any recommendations or suggestions are welcome!

Yeah. My only complaint about all of the Methods I have purchased and installed is that they are not hub centric to the trucks I’ve put them on. I’ve always done all of the rotations myself and am super careful to get them perfectly centered because of this.

My experience is that Method has always been a quality product. I suspect it was just a crappy install. Over-tightened, under-tightened, and/or not carefully centered.

 

[pakrat]

Glad you were not hurt BUT I am curious why you think it was the wheel that failed? It could have been that all the lug nuts were lose and because the wheels were not hubcentric, the wheel bolts would have carried the full weight of the wheel and tires and that would have sheered the bolts right off.

My thoughts exactly. How is the wheel at fault? Is it cracked or something obvious? Sounds to me like they want you to not question it. Ask for the service manager and get his explanation. It’s an install error unless something indicates otherwise like a rounded out stud hole or cracked wheel. Even then that damage would probably be from the broken studs. Torque settings are there to put proper tension on the stud. Overtight will stretch the stud to the point of creating permanent weakness and under tight the nut will simply walk off. Hate doing this kinda thing but if he doesn’t change his tune drop the old I’m going to have to consult my attorney.

 

[Stinger1]

That’s basically what I eluded to is they could have been over/under tightened and they need to rectify this to my satisfaction. They stated they will have an answer for me tomorrow. It’s a cop out in my opinion to blame the failure on the wheel.

 

[Baja Bronco]

Doubt it’s the wheel, but it’s the wrong size, why didn’t you get the right size? I’m thinking it’s over-torqued lugs that caused the studs to sheer off. You’re extremely lucky nothing happened to you or your Bronco.

 

[Raptor911]

The Bronco bolt pattern is 6x139.7 .. this is the same bolt pattern as a Toyota truck. So anytime you see a wheel listed as 6x139.7 with a 106mm hub, it was originally intended for a Toyota truck. This will fit a bronco BUT it would be called a lug-centric wheel in that the lugs center the wheel. A hub-centric bronco wheel like what RTR sells has a hub size of 93.1 and this wheel would be hub-centric for a bronco.

Many Many bronco wheels on the market now has a 106mm hub. You can run these wheels BUT I would recommend running some hub-centric rings. For example 106 to 93.1 >> https://www.amazon.com/WHEEL-CONNECT-Centric-Aluminium-Hubrings/dp/B08CXRYRQP/ref=sr_1_4?crid=7D8NN0O2RC6N&keywords=hubcentric+rings+106mm+to+93.1&qid=1674709258&sprefix=hubcentric+rings+106mm+to+93.1,aps,63&sr=8-4&th=1

BTW .. all oem wheels are hub-centric.

Doubt it’s the wheel, but it’s the wrong size, why didn’t you get the right size? I’m thinking it’s over-torqued lugs that caused the studs to sheer off. You’re extremely lucky nothing happened to you or your Bronco.

 

[Stinger1]

It is the right size! It’s the wheel Method sells for the Ford Bronco. There is no other size.

 

[Stinger1]

The Bronco bolt pattern is 6x139.7 .. this is the same bolt pattern as a Toyota truck. So anytime you see a wheel listed as 6x139.7 with a 106mm hub, it was originally intended for a Toyota truck. This will fit a bronco BUT it would be called a lug-centric wheel in that the lugs center the wheel. A hub-centric bronco wheel like what RTR sells has a hub size of 93.1 and this wheel would be hub-centric for a bronco.

Many Many bronco wheels on the market now has a 106mm hub. You can run these wheels BUT I would recommend running from hub-centric rings. For example 106 to 93.1 >> https://www.amazon.com/WHEEL-CONNECT-Centric-Aluminium-Hubrings/dp/B08CXRYRQP/ref=sr_1_4?crid=7D8NN0O2RC6N&keywords=hubcentric+rings+106mm+to+93.1&qid=1674709258&sprefix=hubcentric+rings+106mm+to+93.1,aps,63&sr=8-4&th=1

Thank you!!!

 

[Lanshark]

Method and/or Discount should have strongly recommended or even supplied hubcentric rings for the wheels. I'm not sure where the ultimate responsibility lies on this one. I've bought a lot of wheels for other vehicles, if they weren't the exact bore when I mentioned the intended application, I have always been asked if I had or needed rings. And our local Discount Tire has asked where they were if I didn't hand them to the installer. Not trying to kick you while you're down on this, but it's going to be blamed on the lack of rings. Glad nobody got hurt, good luck on the repairs. I hope the shop or mfg takes some responsibility for not supplying or recommending them.

 

[Newbie]

wow

 

[ATLBronco75]

Did you use hubcentric rings to help you get them correctly aligned?

 

[Dingbat]

How many miles after last installing the wheels did this happen?
What were they torqued to?
Who installed them (Just saw Dealer rotated them)on the vehicle and did they get re-torqued after being driven on?

 

[Faust]

Whelp. These were one of the wheels I narrowed down to in my search.

 

[MadMan4BamaNATL]

Method and/or Discount should have strongly recommended or even supplied hubcentric rings for the wheels. I'm not sure where the ultimate responsibility lies on this one. I've bought a lot of wheels for other vehicles, if they weren't the exact bore when I mentioned the intended application, I have always been asked if I had or needed rings. And our local Discount Tire has asked where they were if I didn't hand them to the installer. Not trying to kick you while you're down on this, but it's going to be blamed on the lack of rings. Glad nobody got hurt, good luck on the repairs. I hope the shop or mfg takes some responsibility for not supplying or recommending them.

Wouldn’t it be on the dealership who‘s employees installed the tires to the wheels, then wheels to the vehicle and as you describe, should have known better?

Of course, what we don’t know is whatever “fine print” the dealership throws out whenever they install aftermarket products on a vehicle.

Regardless, there should be liability due to negligence if they reasonably should have known of a present danger to the driver and others if the wheels were necessary to be installed with those rings.

OP, use some variation of the above statement, as your attorney will and it should cause a pucker moment for the dealership service manager.

Because there was no injury, an attorney would be difficult to hire unless there is some pattern of such behavior by the dealership and that would only be known following a very expersive and long investigation. The remedy here is to repair the wheel, then add the rings to the other wheels all for free or maybe with just charging labor which is always hard to comp for a customer. Either Ford, Method, or dealership can opt to pay for the labor, but looks like dealership from how the story sounds.

Good luck!

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