Thanks to a recent unrelated thread topic, I took ours off this last weekend, cleaned up the alloys underneath...and WOW! :blink: ...sweet it does look, yes? (voice of Yoda) It looks like a completely different car that has custom wheels. We figure, in a few years when it's time to trade, and there is a little curb rash on the wheels, we'll put the trim rings back on to cover it up for a good resale. If you don't like the look of it intially, give it a day. At first it looks naked - but then, when you look at it from different angles through the day, it grows on you. drag coefficient?....naw - none of us are on the salt flats to even being able to notice something like that...let alone document it.
Before I took delivery of my 2005 I bought a set of take offs with tires on ebay for $300. I like black wheels on white cars so I had them powder coated black. Now you all know you cant powder coat plastic, so I ran the wheels with out the trim rings (I did try the 2 tone look once and took it off quickly). When I sold the car, the new owner preferd the original wheels so I put the original wheels and tiires back on the car and kept the black wheels for my 2006.
Aren't the spokes welded to the rim? At least they were, I'm pretty sure. The ring could simply be to cover the welds which are unsightly compared to other seemless designs.
I missed this for more than a month... Yes. It is very small, but Toyota did a lot of such small things to achieve the better and better gas mileage. Ken@Japan
