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Matthew - I'm not trying to argue and I don't feel I've acted unprofessionally with anyone on this forum. However, please don't confuse me trying to address the blatantly false accusations being made about our company and product as trying to act unprofessional. I'm simply trying to interject a few facts into the discussion and like most "arguments" on internet forums no one ever gives up an inch on what they believe or what they've heard from their mothers brothers aunt's mailman about the topic regardless of actual firsthand knowledge of the topics discussed and things quickly spiral downward. It's the nature of the beast unfortunately but we NEVER call people out, act disrespectful, or try and berate members. Period. End of discussion.
Per Jordan's argument on L4P - It must've been before my time because we have a stellar reputation on that forum and no bad blood with anyone i've seen in my time with ADV.1. My job for the first 6 months was simply to be online forums and interact with communities, answer questions, etc and i've seen no evidence of that forum rejecting us. Again - i'm not trying to be disrespectful to you - simply stating that my experience hasn't been that and i've seen no evidence of that.
Now onto addressing the TUV certification more in depth and why only having one set certified for the M3 platform...
What we haven't been able to explain well enough apparently is that with TUV certification you can have a 20X8.5, 20X10.5 setup for the M3 that is built and TUV certified. Another wheel built next in line with the identical materials, in the same factory, on the same machine, at the same time, but running a 20X8.5, 20X11 M3 setup (or even an identical 20X8.5, 20X10.5 but with a different spoke design) is considered by TUV to be a completely different wheel and thus won't have certification.
From a structural and quality standpoint there is NO difference between the 20X10.5, and 20X11 wheel - the only difference is the paperwork. Our wheels haven't changed in their manufacturing process since day one which means getting all of our wheels TUV certified is simply a matter of paperwork.
This is why we've been able to achieve a TUV manufacturing certification and why now we can pump paperwork through on tons of wheels to make things official on anything our customers need TUV certified. But understand - paperwork or no paperwork the quality and safety of the wheels on the 20X11 wheel (or different spoke design wheel) isn't compromised simply because it doesn't have the paperwork. They are ALL made in accordance to TUV standards and have been since day one.
If that wasn't the case we would not have been able to achieve TUV manufacturing status. Now i'm sure someone at this point will say "But X company says their entire line is TUV certified". Most wheel manufactures that don't build custom offsets can do this simply because there is a finite amount of widths and offsets possible to achieve this. They may only offer a 19X8.5 19X10.5 in 4 offsets, and as such only have to certify 8 wheels to have that entire line TUV certified.
For us on the other hand as we can build ANY offset you'd like to have our entire lineup TUV certified we'd have to build and test a 19X10 +0, 19X10 +1, 19X10 +2, 19X10 +3, and on and on and on. And then after we certified 150 wheels for the rear at 2k a pop for certification we'd have to do the same for the front wheel. No company has done this before and this is why we haven't - there is no reason to as the actual structure and safety/load rating of the wheel doesn't change with a different offset. Which is why we don't TUV certify "every" wheel.
For our 1-piece wheels alone it would require 40 different forgings (wheel sizes), x 12 spoke designs x roughly 100 different offset permutations which would only require about 48,000 wheels to be certified to have our entire 1-piece line officially TUV certified in every fitment configuration possible. And then we'd have to start in on our 3-piece wheels. Do you think any other big name wheel manufacture did that to TUV certify their entire line? Of course not.
Hopefully this can help claify why this whole TUV certified/not TUV certified thing is a slightly ridiculous discussion to begin with. The facts are this - our wheels are up to TUV standards or we wouldn't have been able to get TUV manufacturing certification. Every ADV.1 wheel on the road can pass that certification but are we going to certify every style and option? No. And no other company would either. For our customers in Germany - where this certification is actually necessary, those are the applications we're going to certify for on their specific orders.
I hope this can clarify the TUV certification and any concerns with the safety of our product line.
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