Youngsters: help me out with a term!

Ok, call me old. I HAVE had a lot of Toyotas though. So, there's a term that's been bugging me for years now. "Rims".

The "rim" is a PART of a wheel. Not the whole thing. It's the outer part. The part the tire bead is seated in; the part the weights are attached to. The part outboard of whatever type of center the WHEEL has.

It used to be that the entire unit was referred to as the "wheel".... now you guys all call them "rims"... to me, that's just a part of the wheel. When I hear someone refer to getting new rims, it sounds weird to me, unless you have a true set of component wheels, like some kind of racing wheels.

There. Now I don't feel so bad. I said my piece. Just call them wheels, eh?

 

is a 36 yr old father of 2 a youngster?
I call "wheels" the rims... Always have...
(But I get your point)

 

The term just highlights the look of the wheels, not the entire wheel, I.E., "spinners" are rims...XD's are wheels. Hope it helps.

 

Yeah it kinda bugs me when people are saying like im getting new rims when its just a wheel. I would say spinners are rims, and maybe those things you attach to the wheels for looks, but thats it. Its a wheel! sheesh! Hah jk

 

This is actually a term that came from the lowrider movement in the late 70's early 80's. It was used to talk about the skinny tires that they used to stretch onto wheels so that more of the "rim" was showing than the sidewall of the tire. Ex: When a tricked out car rolled by one might say, "Damn bro, that mofo is ridin' on rims!" Ghetto slang lesson for the day!

 

I had someone tell me the opposite and say that "wheel" means the whole thing...Ribber and alloy/steel. So I changed my post to Rims when I was selling my stock ones. But I have always called the steel or alloy part a wheel.

So what do you refer to the whole thing together?

 

I refer to it as the wheel and tire combination. I don't usually refer to them as "rims".

 

Terms change over the years... the language is always evolving. Just a fact of life.

Current definition as I understand it:

Rim = the entire metal part that attaches to axle

Wheel = Rim + Tire

 

Okay that is what I say.

Wheel


Tire


Tire and Wheel combination

 

I may be young but I have the same understanding that you do man.

 

I call em wheels too

Rims is like a bro term

 

Ok guys I am off to pick out some new RIM's......

 

The word rim means outer 1.: the outer part of a wheel 2: an outer edge of something curved.; border, margin

rim vb rimmed; rimming: .... 1:to serve as a rim for: border 2: to run around the rim of...hence the word "rim job"

 

Yeah, thanks guys. And for HomerTaco, yeah, you're a young guy.

For the last poster.... I think "rim job" is a timeless term. Heh. BUT... doing a rim job on your Taco doesn't mean what it COULD mean. There's a lot of confusion here.

 

As far as I'm concerned, rims are wheels, and both are the metal structure supporting and rotating the rubber tire. Technically speaking, the rims are just the outer structure of the metal, as described by the OP. I don't doubt that the term was popularized by folks running super thin tires on giant diameter wheels (thus showing off the rim portion of the wheel). I'm gonna go out on a limb and expose my nerd-ery on this, but, despite its origins, the use of the word "rim" to describe the entire metal wheel is an example of synecdoche (pronounced sin-eck-do-key), wherein a whole object is described by a piece of it or material it's made from. Example: referring to a sword as "your steel," or condoms as "rubbers," or a football as a "pigskin." Similar to this (but not synecdoche) is describing an object by its action. Example: referring to your truck as "your ride," or your shoes as "your kicks."

That said, plenty of uninformed/misinformed individuals believe that the term wheel refers to the metal wheel and rubber tire combination, probably from a misreading of the song "The wheels on the bus."

 

According to urbandictionary.com:

"The visible part of a car wheel. These parts are often highly customized by people who want to show off their car. They can be various colors. The most common colors are usually gold or silver. Some of these have special spinners in them so they spin even when the car is not in motion. Rims are one feature that set a car apart from being a stock model. Like jewelry for a car. Many people desire rims and will go to great lengths to acquire them. Some people may steal them off cars, car jack a person to get them, or kill somebody over them. They are often used as a status symbol."

 

x2
For me, it was never a slang it was just what I knew it as.

My 61 year old boss calls all aluminum rims "mag wheels" now that is both old school and incorrect!

 

That's pretty much how I use it too.

Not to mention there ARE regional dialect differences.

And practically speaking, at least in my HS (15 years ago), rims were the "cool" chrome hi-price additions to a car's wheels (ie, the tire).

I never understand why idiots drive around with $2000 in rims, in a $1000 POS. F-ing morons.

 

Amen!!

 

Dubs and rims, wheel? Must be a Northwest thing.

WE go wheeling with the wheeler here - thats an atv

Mudd'en or boondock'en

Wheel broke? Sounds like you have a car then.