Porsche Suffers Near-Catastrophic Aftermarket Wheel-Spoke Break

Manufacturing defect or faulty repair? That's the debate on 6SpeedOnline over a member's rim that suffered cracks in two spokes while he was driving his Porsche 911 (996) GT2. He got extremely lucky, but what's the story?

So I am driving along the road and I hear a very odd grinding noise. I pulled over and 2 of my spokes on my Kineses f110 wheel are cracked all the way through the spokes! I was amazed as I thought these were bullet proof strong wheels! So I have the car flat bedded away to a near by shop. The tire guy comes back to me and says that they have been welded up recently! I just bought these a month ago from a well known forum member on here that told me they were "just re-painted because of some minor scratches." I am pretty pissed at this point for not only being f*cked over for buying welded up wheels but this could have killed myself or others on the road!!! Imagine if I was driving the car hard and it busted completely!

Apparently it's likely the repainting was at issue, as another forum member chimed in with a separate thread from a similar incident:

Repainting seems innocent enough but it doesn't take much to overheat and damage a forged center. We see people claiming they do it all the time without issues but I can assure you that it is only a matter of time and miles before the centers start to crack once they've been overheated. A difference of 50 degrees F is the difference between safely powdercoating and severe degradation of the parts. The vendor doesn't know because fatigue failures take time.

Repainted, cracked, welded, broken. Caveat emptor out there, people.