Just had a tire-rotation for my first 5k miles. Afterwards I drove several miles down the highway to a store before I noticed my back-driver hubcap wasn't installed back on correctly. Part of the hubcap plate is still popped-out. In a panic I drove back to the service depot, and the guy just used his hands and popped the hubcap back in. Which make me wonder - how durable are they hubcaps anyways - considering I had been driving down the highway with part of its flap sticking out of the wheel-rim?
There built to do what they are demanded to do. Which is BE a plastic hub cap. I don't mean to sound sarcastic but how durable do they need to be? Basically as long as they can stay in place...and not crack due to enviromental changes...then that's about as durable as they need to be or I would expect them to be designed to be. If your's wasn't installed correctly...then that's the problem. If it wasn't installed correctly because a tab is defective? Then that's a different problem. But in general a plastic hubcap is such a basic piece of equipment...no moving parts...it is what it is. Have heard complaints about how they look...but not too many complaints about any durability issues.
I took mine off the first week I had the car. I get an average of 60MPG. There is no reason to put them back on.
Please site your reference for "designed to". It has already been proven that adding mud flaps actually increases mileage (forum search), and hub caps have been shown more than once to cause more poor performance.
My 06 Trim rings (equivalent to new hubcaps) have held up very well since Jan. 2006. They have been hanging on my garage wall, and look good as new! Garage, basemant, take your pick, just anywhere but on the car.
I lost one of my hubcaps . About a month later I found the hubcap in the bushes at a grocery store. I once was lost, but now am found.
Chief Engineer Otuska-san They probably just didn't snap it properly that's all. It has a metal wire that runs near the edges of the cover to hold it in place.
Once I was driving along and a huge bird dropping hit my windshield. I turned on the wipers but it was on the part of the windshield not covered by the sweep of the blade. In a panic I drove back to the service depot. A Toyota tech took out a rag and was just about to wipe it off when the service manager walked up and told him not to because it looked like the droppings of an endangered Foo bird. The service tech just laughed at him and wiped the goop from the windshield. Immediately all four plastic hubcaps popped off the car and went rolling around the service bays. Moral: When the Foo shits wear it.
