Alloy wheels; a confession!

[stickandrudderman]

For 36 years I have maintained that the way to tell original bundt style alloys from after-market copies is the radius on the inside of the rim.
I just bought a job lot of alloy wheels and am surprised to discover that I have 4 rims with  Mercedes part number 1084001002 but two have the radius I would expect and two have the harder radius that I always thought were copies. I cannot discern any manufacturer's markings but I guess that MB must have used two different suppliers for these rims.
Mind you, I suppose it's not inconceivable that the copies could have also used a MB part number illegally.

[WRe]

Hi,
original alloy "Barock" wheels are made from Fuchs (http://www.fuchsfelge.de) for MB but there are alot of copies in the market made from ARC, ATS, Ronal, Ative, Melber, Centra, OZ, etc.. The original wheels are forged and not casted and therefore you can see casting margins in the holes. There are some other characteristics for Fuchs: Fuchs stamp inside,  MB number and star, bolt guidance bushings; see here: http://www.benzgarage.de/technik/fuchsfelge/fuchsfelge.html.
But you know, there is nothing in the world which wasn't copied if you can sell it for much money.
...WRe