Method Race Wheels builds some of the baddest tire holders you can bolt to your axles.
That’s a pretty bold statement but if you cruise Instagram for very long you will see there wheels on every kind of custom there is. For a company that doesn’t make a ton of styles when compared to their competition that sure says something about that other factor. Quality.
Quality
What is quality? It’s the difference between a wheel that lasts for multiple trail rides, a wheel that looks good at 6 months, a year, 2 years and beyond. Many manufacturers make wheels that can withstand daily driving, that’s easy. It’s far harder to build a wheel that can climb mountains, fjord rivers, get bashed off of rocks, and scramble over stumps, branches, and mud and still look good. That’s what quality means.
Hole
That’s the name of the wheels we have been running on our Jeep. They are a simple looking design that definitely turn heads. We get a ton of compliments and they are often mistaken for bead lock wheels. They are not bead locks. They have a trim ring that looks like a bead lock. Some people call it a street lock.
I admit to being an individual, who in the past, may have referred to these wheels in a disparaging manner. I may have called them mall crawler specials. That’s all in the past.
Fake Bead Lock
So what does that fake bead lock do for you? Well, it protects the wheel in much the same manner a real bead lock does. You can see in the picture below where we took a decent scratch to the finish. The rock that did that was half the size of the Jeep and the rim acted as a lever to get around the obstacle. On rims with no edge protection you probably would have been doing a trail repair. With these it was a shoulder shrug when we aired up. I didn’t even know it happened on the trail.
The picture doesn’t look like there is much there. You have to picture that mark on a wheel with no protective ring and realize how it would have tried to peel that edge right off and pop the tire.
Method also undercut the lip and extended the trim ring beyond the rim edge. This protects the tire bead and makes the outer lip super strong. The only benefit you don’t get from these wheels that you do from a true bead lock is the second surface holding a bead in place. On the plus side you don’t have to do bolt maintenance all the time either. Making these perfect for a daily driven trail rig.
Design
For the Jeep JK the wheel has a 4.75 inch backspacing, 5×5 bolt pattern and lug centric mounting. The finish is a very durable powder coat that really, really, resists damage.
That Street-Loc features a strategic undercut and the bolts around the edge are replaceable stainless steel. The ring is not replaceable however, and if there is one complaint it would be that water and mud get captured inside the wheel. You can see that in the picture below. That mud is 1/4 inch thick in the bottom of hat wheel.
The Wrap Up
If you don’t like this design that’s fine they make different ones. If you do, these retail for $212 bucks and are a steal at that price. The durability, the finish, and the protection afforded by the Street-Loc ring are top notch. These are also available in black.
One final thought. The one oddity that we really are confused by is the size of the center cap. It’s ridiculously long and is generally the one negative comment we hear about the wheel design. We would suggest trying to get a shorter one. It looks better and is less likely to get hung up on the trail.
