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What’s this fad now to have no hubcaps on your car? Seriously, how many people take their hubcaps off their cars and why?
Something must be said because it’s starting to drive me crazy. I mean, I know it’s personal preference whether you like or dislike a car with or without hubcaps, but I’m just speaking my mind for one, and wanna know just why people do it.
I’ve seen everything from civics (mostly) to minivans and even Mercedes without hubcaps. WHY???? What happened to your hubcaps? First I though the hubcaps were stolen, but at the number of cars without hubcaps it makes you wonder, were do they all go? You’d think some people steal hubcaps to put them on their own cars, therefore there would be only a few cars without hubcaps, you know, sorta rotate hubcaps among the stealing population. Second, I thought people have their “winter wheels” on, but if I were to buy nice rims I wouldn’t throw out my hubcaps, and when winter came, I’d have stock wheels AND hubcaps. Third, I thought people like the look better, but that’s just insane, especially for a Mercedes. Then I figured, maybe people without hubcaps wanna go faster, and therefore loose the extra 2 lbs per hubcap, I don’t know.
The point is, some cars look great, but they have NO HUBCAPS!!! I just hate it. People with the crappies car on earth take their hubcaps off to fit in to the racing look or something.
This has pissed me off so much that I’m considering becoming a bizarro thief. That’s right. I work at a car rental place and for some reason we have piles of hubcaps lying around. I’m gonna go around at night putting hubcaps BACK on cars.

 
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I took mine off to clean them inside and out and decided to leave em off for a while... see if it looked better or not. (I have a NBP civic) and it looks good. Ill put the caps back on in a couple days and prolly leave em on.

And yeah, its mostly preference, there are a lot of people who hate it, as well as like it
Shambler

 
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1st winter i left them on ....this yr there off...i think it looks better...just personal style i guess.

 
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uuuhh it really shouldnt matter to you what other people do thier cars its their cars not yours.

 
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first off, I don't own any but if I did have them on my winter steelies I would take them off for the following reason...

They trap ice, snow and salt between the cap and the wheel causing a balance problem.

 
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I have oem 15" rims for the summer and oem 14" rims for the winter.
The 14" came with hubs but I decided they make a nicer display for the garage wall.

 
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i leave my hubbies off my steelies for the winter

 
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That's actually a pretty good reason, see, that kinda makes sense if that's your reasoning.

And I already said it's a matter of prefferance and that I'm just speaking my mind, read the entire message man. If noone had an opionion, noone would post. I think it's damn ugly to have no hubcaps and that's all, but at least Pharoh seems to have a decent reason, never thought of that one. And if anyone does like the look of no hubcaps, that's great for you, but let me hate it, and slap on some hubs at night, hehe, I mean really, who's gonna be pissed for getting free hubcaps, they can just throw them out, I don't care, I just think it's funny.

 
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I dont put my hubcaps back on my winter tires because I'm lazy and didnt want to bother going inside the house at the time I put the wheels on. I think it looks fine.. to me, it adds to the winter look lol.

 
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Yup, that's exactly my reasoning. I never bothered getting any when I picked up my steelies from Honda. Just leave 'em bare.

My Konig's look kinda sad right now in the basement against the wall..

 
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i got em off because i wanted to get some of that spinning hubbies..

HAHA!!

nah just kidding. my car's crashed. but i once did had a thought of taking the hubbies off myself. but too lazy.

 
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Most people who have steelies on in the winter are using them as CHEAP rims for snow tires. Rims that if they get messed up, they're $80 and can be thrown away. There's no need to waste $19.99 at AutoZoo getting crappy wheel covers.
With most cars coming with rims these days, no one has a set of hubcaps laying around... so you buy a Tire Rack steelie/snow tire combo pack and don't care about it. Then when the weather gets better again, you pull the bling-bling back out.

 
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Not Bling-Bling..... you bring out your Orange Glow....

 
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It's less rotational mass. Fuel economy is everything, as well as 1/4 mile times

 
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I have recently been baffled by the same observation. Only one explanation - it's a fad. Fads are started by people that are regarded as cool. People think it looks cool because cool people are doing it. Other non-cool people want to be cool too, so they do what cool people do. So it has now become 'cool' to take your hubcaps off. Of course it is cool only as long as most people aren't doing it. If everyone was doing it, it wouldn't be cool anymore. So, if the frequency of hubcap-less cars increases too much then it will no longer be cool, and we will then see more people leaving their hubcaps on. Funny species we are.

 
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^dood...wat the hell.....

this is a 4year old thread........why on earth did u bring it back to life?!?!

 
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Can't believe I'm quoting someone from 03' but this is why I take mine off (for winter only)



STEELIES FTW!!!

 
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maybe some people just dont HAVE hubcaps. you get a set of wheels for winter from someone or something, and they don't have caps for them. or, maybe they BREAK one cap, then you look dumb rolling with 3. i personally think hubcaps look stupid though, BUT if i get a chance to put my k20 into a hatch this summer, it's going mad sleeper status on steelies with oem caps.

 
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at least he searched..

 
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people with no money who want to mod their car usually do it to look different

 
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Like boilmaker said, people use their steelies in the winter because they usually have summer rims. Yes, most cars these days do come with stock rims, so why spend the extra cash like boilmaker said.

Since you're from Toronto, and I live in the GTA. I pretty much see the same cars as you do. People do this in the winter only. You don't see people rocking steelies in the summer, unless they are super cheap a$$.

I rock steelies in the winter, but I got winter tires, and my car never came with hub caps. My car came with actual rims. I feel its not necessary to buy hub caps. There's no reason to buy hub caps.

btw, none of this is a fad. Just over the few past years, more and more people in the GTA (I can't comment on other areas or cities since I don't live there), are getting winter tires. I know, because many friends who are mechanics, and people always ask them to get them winter tires. I know it makes no sense to ask a mechanic to get you winter tires, but people are dumb. Any how, your rant makes no sense.

Plain and simple. People in the GTA, Toronto, and surrounding areas rock steelies in the winter because they are using winter tires, and usually have summer rims.

Oh, and I don't know why this is making you upset. People can do whatever they want to a car. If you don't like it, look the other way, or at least laugh.

 
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but to respond to the poster (considering hes still among the living) people in the great white north use steelies as a way to save their nice rims. people in the south use steelies to make it look like they have nice rims (while their rolling)

 
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but why not keep the hubcaps on steelies? and dont tell me its to save the paint on the caps that they are never gonna use again.

 
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Where I live, no hubcaps means one of the following things:

A) They were stolen by some jackass
B) They broke them
C) Just a poser wanting to try and make himself look different and say he "tuned" his car when in reality, he only took off his caps...

That's how it is up here...sad...haha

 
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well since this is a debate again. i have my hubcaps off cause last year when i put my rims on i took them off and put them in the shed. along with them i put a little box holding all of the hubcap lug nuts. (the ones with the little black spacer in them) well when i went to put them back on they were no long there. the box disappeared. i blame my old tenate he was a little ricer. but yeah so now i rock my gorillaz in the winter too.

 
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psh.......my hub caps are JDM yo!!!!

(i actually BOUGHT a set of hubcaps to run spare when i was waiting for my rims to get repaired)

 
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I just didn't care enough to pay the extra money when I bought snows and steelies. I live in Canada anyways, impossible to have a nice car here.

 
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I contest that, it's very easy to have a nice car up here, just take good care of it and be mindful of where you park it and how you park it :P

 
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I leave mine off because I think the invention of the hubcap sucks. Especially those walmart spinners. MY CAR got hit by a hubcap that came off a car coming at me in the opposite direction. I was driving at 40mph while it was coming at me 40mph..... Lets just say I got a new bumper.

And it looks better without them when your car is dirty

 
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very easy would be living in an enviroment not as prone to rust as Canada is, what you described is rather difficult for people who, unfortunately, have lives outside of the driving seat.