hub cap replacements?

Our (base trim) 2007 with stock wheels now has a new set of 185/65 R15 General Altimax RT45s on it. Hopefully better traction than the Bridgestone Ecopia EP422's without too much loss in mpg. Anyway, after rolling home from the tire shop I noticed that one of the hub caps wasn't sitting flush. Pulled it off and it had two adjacent broken tabs (the part that holds the metal ring) still attached to the ring but snapped off at the outer ring. Another cap was also not sitting right, and when I pulled that one off the tab was entirely gone. The outer rings all look OK. Checked one of the other two and it was fine.

This plastic feels very fragile, I'm not surprised that some of them broke. For all I know they might have been broken before but I never noticed. Also it was really dirty underneath, as I was not pulling them off when the car was washed.

Anyway, is it worth the effort to hunt down some replacements, or just pull them all off and call it a day? I'm sure Toyota's official statement is that it is important for aerodynamics, but I doubt I could measure the change in MPG above the tank to tank variation. They look like they might protect the tire stem some though.

Repair the one with two broken tabs with some epoxy, or is that just a fool's errand? It broke at the part which I think gets the most stress.

I don't remember if LKQ leaves hub caps on or not when they put the cars out.

Are there any after market ones which match?

Part number may be 42602-47030

 

Ah, missed that. I just ordered a set, will report back on quality and fit when they come. Hopefully these aftermarket ones won't be quite as fragile as the 18 year old ones currently on the car.

Thanks.

 

This morning washed all the rims, which were really dirty where the wheel trim rings had been. The dirt was very fine and uniform and may have been mostly brake dust. As noted in the post before this, the trim rings mark up the rims - there were little "teeth marks" where each of the tabs clamped onto the rim. Of course these are not normally visible.

I do wonder what the clumps of dirt/dust and missing trim ring tabs do to the wheel balance.

There was a large fat spider living under one of the two remaining trim rings. Either he/she just went in recently or the little critter really liked going in circles quickly.

 

These came today and I put two of them on. I give them a 95% score for matching the original.

The color is the same I think - these are a little more silvery but I suspect the difference is due to fading of the originals. Not sure which plastic these are made of as a cursory examination (not mm by mm) didn't turn up any marks like "HDPE". The thickness of the plastic and the construction are mostly the same. They differ primarily in the handling of the loop of wire. In the originals where it goes around the tire stem the wire is bent so that it is parallel to the surface of the ring everywhere, that is the entire wire is in one plane, and the offset area is fairly wide. In the replacements the wire has a deeper and less wide bend which is approximately rectangular, and it goes out of the plane of the wire ring, towards the surface of the ring, where it actually touches the plastic. The wire seems to be the same diameter (eyeballing it) but isn't the same color. The older ones are dusty silver, the newer ones have a sort of bronze sheen to them. Again, they could be the same metal and this is just aging of the originals. They rings fit mostly the same. They snap on the same way and have the same tenacious grip once it has been pushed on all the way.

The problem, and this is really the only significant issue I found, is that of the two I put on both are warped slightly at the outer edge behind the tire stem. The plastic comes off the wheel surface by around 2 mm in one case and more like 4 mm in the other. Everywhere else if fits flat. That means when the car is at speed there are going to be wheel positions where high velocity air is going straight into that gap, and it might be enough to eventually pop them off. They are currently on the back wheels since I believe those are a little more protected from oncoming air than the fronts. I suspect that these rings are warped like that because the detour of the metal ring around the valve hole is pushing on the plastic, and over time it bends it slightly outward. Because of the rectangular path detour the wire takes it may be possible to bend the distal part of the wire up and away from the plastic, perhaps with a vise grip and big set of channel locks. It is a pretty substantial bit of wire, it is going to take a lot of force to reshape it. That should not make the rest of the ring any looser or tighter. Then the ring could maybe be bent back to flat with some heat.

I am leaving for a roughly 800 mile trip tomorrow, hopefully these rings will stay on, and if they don't, well, only out about $10 each.