at the body shop i worked at the old guru said aluminum in contact with steel will cause it to rust faster than if it was steel/steel contact
He is correct. Being from the metal ind. I know a pretty good bit about the two and how they interact.
But, what you have to remember. Plastic wears out faster than the alum. would and if you tried to use a steel ring (which I have never seen) you would have the rim being the weak point which is the alum. Now you are wearing you rim out. So its better for the rim to wear than the rim or the steel hub.
Plus, I know that my alum ones snap into the rim and they stay put only way to get them out is to pop them out.
Just to let you guys now if you take alum rust (yes alum does rust, in a sense anyways) and take steel rust and then use a lighting source IE: torch or some sort you will get a nice flash.
Also, if you mix alum dust and stainless steel dust togeather you will get a hot a@@ fire that will pretty much burn till the fuel IE: dust runs out. This is something some shops forget about that own our laser cutting machines. When you cut metal with a laser it makes a super fine dust. Some customer will cut tons of sheets of alum then go to cutting stainless steel. You can do this fine but you have to remember to empty out the dust collector otherwise you can burn the place up.
I could go on all day.
