Panasport Wheels Options

[2-OH!]

Okay gang...Need some opinions...

I have a track to buy two New Panasports but they are not DOT approved...Meaning they are for the race track only...

Why can't I use them on my daily driver...

Not DOT approved, does it matter...Good enough for the track, good enough for a daily driver (in this case, not all components)

2-OH!

[Mueller]

I know people running the "race only" versions on the street...however, no idea if one could get a ticket or car impounded if you got pulled over for something else and the officer noticed the wheels....

if you did have one fail on you and since we live in sue happy Kalifornia, someone would try to get paid

I believe they are not as ductile as the "street" versions...

[lapuwali]

Not DOT approved means they simply haven't been tested. This may mean they're not good for street use (for example, they may be extra light wheels that would bend very easily in the first pothole), but it may also simply mean they haven't been tested.

Panasport (the company) went out of business long ago, and used to make a class of ultra-light magnesium wheels that would probably fold up if you just said the words "curb rash" to them. There were a number of wheels made by various companies that LOOKED like the old Panasport wheels for several years, and recently, someone bought the Panasport name and began producing wheels under that name. Most of the fake Panasports (and, I believe, the new "real" ones) are cast aluminum, not magnesium, and are generally going to be fairly stout. However, not all of the makers may have bothered with having them tested.

If they're not DOT tested but are TUV tested, or meet the UK Type Approval rules, then they're fine, as those tests are just as stringent (or much more so) than the US DOT tests. If they're not approved by any testing authority, they may still be OK, but you have no way of knowing w/o actually trying them.

[Mueller]

if Japanese made the testing consists of dropping a weight on a wheel/tire combo to mimic a direct curb hit, on some of the Miata and Honda sites, there have been reports of some of these "lightweight" wheels cracking with no known abuse thrown at them on street cars....

Not sure if Panasports had been one of them or not, but for as many that are running on cars in the Bay Area, I've not heard of a failure, but that does not mean it has not happened or won't.