Hub centric rings - plastic vs metal?

Is there a preference on quality or reliability?

I need to get ones for my RPF1's and curious if brand name part really matters on this sort of part. If so, what do you recommend? I find a few when doing an eBay search.

Thanks!

Bryan

I have plastic ones that came with my Gram Light 57 Pro's. Have had no issues.

My varrstoen came with the plastic rings...... And no problems with them

If you get metal, make sure you keep a film of anti-sieze on them to keep them from sticking (rust or electrolysis).

I've had slight problems with both aluminum and plastic... Plastic wears out, the aluminum ones I have had get stuck on the hubs with slight damage to them.

-Charlie

The plastic will not hold up if you push the car (brakes) hard enough, speaking from experience.

Plastic ftw, gotta have proper hard plastic though.

ill weigh in on this as i just went through this.
hub rings carry no load its a fact, they are there purely to assist in locating the wheel and prevent it being off center.
doing your wheels up in a star pattern in several increments (20-lbs-50lbs -70lbs) will center the wheel due to the taper on after market wheels/nuts.
wheels nuts hold the wheel on and center once they are torqued, the hub ring will have zero load, only time it will be loaded is if the wheels nuts are loose/fail in which case since its alloy/plastic it wont do squat anyway.
so why have them? to minimize any chance of an off center wheel causing a vibration, that is it.
yes i run them i take the better to be safe than sorry logic but i know they are there to assist fitment.
as for alloy or plastic, i went alloy as thats what work wheels sell for the size i needed (60-54.1). i do track work so i agree that plastic could melt given the proximity to the disc and the airflow i think this is a small if none existent risk with high quality plastic ring, as meurz indicated he has had trouble free operation with plastic.
so if you track the car go alloy to be safe, if you dd the car plastic will be fine, but remember to torque your nuts to what toyota recommends 76 ft lbs, and re torque after 60-100miles (i do 100 kilometers) to ensure the nuts are tight when everything has seated, any tighter and your just going to weaken the stud, and it will actually not hold the wheel as tight as you will have already started the stud to yield.

i've used plastic for a few years now (from JEGS), but they have started to melt/fuse into the hub and getting harder to pull off when i switch to winter wheels every year...

i autocross and track my car (not that much, though), so my guess is the hub did heat up quite a bit from hard braking.

so i just ordered this week a set of metal ones. it was very hard to find, because i have a very weird spec i guess-- they are for Ray's Volk CE28N wheels. other than getting them from Ray's from Japan, i had to order from some unknown place in finland. rofl. we'll see if they come, else i'm out $35... http://www.hubcentric-rings.com/ that's the place. they have a lot of oddball sizes too if you wanna check it out *if* you can't find your size here in the states / ebay, etc. (i couldn't). 65mm to 54.06mm was my size. (FYI our hub centerbore is 54.06mm or "54.1" mm assuming you have an ST185).

i don't think brand matters, it's just aluminum, as long as they are sized properly, no...?

^ I doubt it, as long as the metal is of decent quality and the measurements are correct I'd imagine it would be hard to find a quality different in a metal ring.

Yeah, 54.1 is what I am getting.

The RPF1's came with hubcentric plastic rings from a VW guy and it was like a 74.x (i'll have to double check before ordering of course) to whatever. So I need the 74.X to 54.1. I'll probably order metal ones though to be safe.

Bryan

Forgot to add that I track my cars as well, plastic holds up fine. I only run 2 piece discs on the front of the CS. I have alu RAYS rings, but they corroded to the hub flange which sucks.