JVoigt

I bought a new set of wheels from an online retailer, and after about 300 miles both wheels are out of dish. The front wheels out of dish by about 4mm, and back out of dish by 6mm. I didn't notice the issue when I first installed the wheels, but now the problem is obvious. I'm wondering if this is something caused by use/wear, or should I ask the builder to take responsibly for it?

fietsbob

How much ... lateral wiggle or hop/dip ?

Machine built wheel then just boxed and shipped, I presume.

or was this a hand built wheel?

there may have been a quick spacer addition, to meet an OLD width increase
with out checking with the Dish stick.


I bring my wheel builder with me , under my hat ..

JVoigt

Hand built wheels.

blamp28

Contact your seller and ask what options you have.

Looigi

Kind of puzzling as to how they would go out of dish, particularly the front wheel.

HillRider

Depending on where you got them and theprice and components, you either have a serious complaint with the seller or you should expect what happened.

Good quality wheels from a reputable supplier build with quality components should remain true and centered through thousands of miles unless they are abused or crash damaged.

Low priced wheels usually have to be trued and tensioned properly by the buyer or by your LBS to have a decent operating life. You can't have low price and detailed qc at the same time.

JVoigt

These were $500 wheels built by someone who's well regarded in these forums. I'll contact him to see what options are. Thanks for the replies.

Al1943

How did you check the dish?
Have you checked the spoke tension?

well biked 

I wonder if there's not a bit of confusion with terminology. Maybe the wheels are now out of true by a few millimeters instead of being "out of dish?"

Sixty Fiver

Dish is what a wheel needs to center it between the lock nuts on the axle... if they were not dished properly that should have been evident when the wheels were installed but then again, mebbe not.

If the wheels are suddenly out by 4-6mm it sounds like they need to be trued which is a variance that will not be found around the entire circumference of the wheel but in localized areas.

Contact the builder.

ultraman6970

Never seen wheels going out of dishm that means that the whole set of spokes in one side went lose, never seen that ever. And even worse, that happens in both wheels.

Sure u dont mean that they went out of true?? That i believe, but out of dish unless they where out of dish from the begining i found it really hard to happen.

JVoigt

I noticed that the rear wheel was almost touching the frame, and it was impossible to adjust the brakes not to rub. Drop-outs are fine. A friend who's a bike mechanic told me they were out of dish, and estimated how much on each wheel. Ended up having LBS true both wheels. Now running fine.

FBinNY 

Wheels may go out of line, but for a wheel to change it's dish while staying decently aligned stretches credulity.

figure the odds of all the spokes on either flange uniformly changing tension.

IMO there are two possibilities.

1- The wheels were poorly built and always that way. (though off-center front wheels are extremely unlikely).

2- The wheels are actually fine, or reasonably correctly dished, and you're not measuring properly.

How did you determine that the wheels are off center? If going by how they sit in the frame, it's equally possible that the wheels are fine and the frame is off, or both are fine and the wheels not fully pocketed in the dropouts.

Whether the wheels are OK or not is easy enough to measure. Stack 3 soup cans on a flat table, remove the tires and lay the wheel across the tripod. Measure up to the axle faces, or make a stack of something that just comes up to the axle faces. flip the wheel and compare.

If the wheels are not decently aligned (within 1/16") you should repeat the measurements rotating the rim to various positions and work with the average.

gyozadude

I've seen wheels go instantly out of dish if the hubs go in for re-adjustment and someone decides to slide a washer from one side of the axle to another. :-) But that's probably not the case here. But a 4mm or 6mm issue with dish is HUGE on a wheel. In my life, I have never seen a set of wheels go out with dish that bad. Baffling.