Ok, how about those giving advice post their actual experince.......as a couple so far have. There is no such thing as which is the best beadlock rim, or which is best, steel or aluminum. It depends on what factors are important to you. I've been running Champion beadlocks on an aluminum rim for about three years, and have no issues with the rims. I wheel a LOT, with plenty of hard rock trails, plenty of (kind of) high speed desert stuff, plenty of long mountain trails, and plenty of street driving. Nearly all of us that wheel the hard trails together out here in the west run aluminum Champion beadlocks. There are plenty of good beadlocks out there, we just happen to run the Champions because he's close to us, they're very good quality, and the price is always right.
Those double beadlock rims can be a good thing, but they can be a real pain in the ass to mount up. The aluminum rims are much lighter than steel, but it is possible at some point in time to break the lip of the bead on the inside. Now, in 10 years of rockcrawling, I've seen an inside lip break on an aluminum wheel twice, and niether time was on a beadlock.....and I've run with a WHOLE bunch of people running aluminum rims. It's possible, just not very likely. The steel rims are cheaper and heavier, and when (not if) they bend you can pound the lip back out.
Nearly all beadlocks center the tire, since there is a lip on the seat of the bead, even the ones that don't advertise that they automatically center the tire. Leaks are rarely an issue, and if there is a leak, it's normally because of some dirt or debris on the bead of the tire....just slightly more sensitive to debris in the bead than a regular rim.
The DOT approval isn't an issue. I crack up everytime I see that brought up. In all that I've ever heard or read on the Internet or in a magazine, no one has ever come up with a specific law or legal case of why a beadlock is not legal on the street......it's always "I've heard". Like Brian said, our beadlock rims say DOT approved on the inside.....so who's to say that they're not DOT approved even if it is somehow an issue. If a couple of the new entires into the market are DOT approved, then it could be safe to say that there is nothing inherently illegal about the other beadlocks that are already on the market. Just not an issue.......
You might re-ask the question "who's running beadlocks, which one's and what do you think of them?"
