Patent ID: 7025426

Claim:
A method of securing a wheel cover to a wheel to form a wheel assembly, which method comprises: providing a wheel having an outboard surface with a plurality of centrally located lug bolt apertures formed in the outboard surface and a plurality of openings formed in the outboard surface and spaced radially outwardly from the lug bolt apertures; providing a wheel cover having an inner surface and a plurality of centrally located lug bolt apertures formed in the wheel cover which correspond to the lug bolt apertures of the wheel, and a plurality of decorative openings formed in the wheel cover and spaced radially outwardly from the lug bolt apertures, which plurality of openings correspond to the plurality of openings formed in the wheel cover; applying a primary adhesive pattern to at least one of the outboard surface of the wheel or the inner surface of the wheel cover; applying an auxiliary adhesive pattern to at least one of the outboard surface of the wheel or the inner surface of the wheel cover; and assembling the wheel cover to the wheel to cause the primary and auxiliary adhesive patterns to contact both the outboard surface of the wheel and the inner surface of the wheel cover and thereby enable the adhesive pattern to secure the wheel cover to the wheel and define a space between the wheel cover and wheel which is not filled with adhesive, said primary adhesive pattern being sufficient to secure the wheel cover to the wheel and comprising a configuration of beads of adhesive that do not fill the entire space between the wheel cover and the wheel, said auxiliary adhesive pattern being insufficient to secure the wheel cover to the wheel and comprising a configuration of discrete beads of adhesive that are provided in portions of the space between the wheel cover and the wheel in which the wheel cover is not directly secured to the wheel by portions of the primary adhesive pattern.