mx5cartalk.com

Greetings Humans!

So my car's other wheels arrived yesterday (came with the purchase, but wouldn't fit in for the drive back), which meant removing my daiseis, and test-fitting the newbies. Very Excitement. Not why I'm calling at dinnertime though. I have different daisies!

imgur gallery: http://imgur.com/a/8sGeS

The top 3 are one lot (Front centre, Rear centre, Rear full), and the bottom 3 are another ones.

I have in total 4 PFD ones, and 2 TOPY ones.

Is there any difference between them, or did madza just decide to use a different manufacturer at some point?

Looks like the back side of the spokes are different, ie hollow vs. reinforced ?

They are indeed reinforced differently!

I've decided the spoke-enforced ones just go on the front for dealing with the side-forces of steering, and if they're the same weight (haven't checked because they have different rubber on them) the TOPY ones will feel lighter at speed, as the weight has moved further in to the centre. The PFD ones are for the back, you know, as a cross brace for all the foot/pounds of torque that will be delivered through them....

Mazda appears to have switched contractor in or around 1992 to PFD. (Hopefully it's different to the PFD that delivers food...)
9th Hand Internet Evidence: http://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-s ... ve-779343/
(Ignore all the guff about cracking wheels, they're entirely different wheels but still OEM Mazda)

I've seen the write-up on miata.net about the other 7-spoke rims being different, I just assumed all daises were daisies because they weren't mentioned.

I didn't look to see who the original contractor was, but I'm going to hazard a guess and say it was TOPY, or possibly a collection of contractors and Mazda moved all of their contracts to PFD to Streamline, Synergise and Save!

The take-home from all of this I guess is if you were *amazingly* OCD and restoring an early model to how it left the factory, you'd want to look out for the ones stamped for your build date. Or put the hubcap covers on and don't worry about it, there's probably medication you can get for that level of OCDness.

an item like a wheel if made by a OEM supplier will have at the very least manufacturing codes incorporated in the wheels. The codes might not even be understandable to the public but it would allow traceability for the OEM / and supplier. OEMs generally do not let on who are their suppliers for Mazda designed items though in some instances this becomes obvious e.g. Koito make some of the headlamps and their name appears on mouldings. I would think its normal that wheels are not defined for just front or back use but any position on the car.