what to do with 4 bent rims?

[hans007]

So due to some bad luck and probably some carelessness though really this road was just stupidly built on xmas eve, i ran over a 2" tall curb / island on an unlit street. at something like 25-30mph. anyway i managed to ruin 2 runflat tires, and bend 4 rims on a 1 month old car.

tires and front rims were in stock , but the rear rims had to be ordered from germany and took 4 weeks (will be here next week).


Anyway got my insurance claim and car is fine. that said what do you do with 4 bent rims? I will have 4 18" BMW 400M m-sport rims. they look perfect other than the inner edge is bent on all 4 of them to varying degrees. they only had 900 miles on them.

Does anyone buy these things? What would you do with 4 rims? Make a coffee table (i'm thinking about doing this, but i don't need 4 of them obviously). I suppose they may be repairable enough for say track / winter use (though i did a pretty good job ruining these and im told maybe not repairable) but i'm already past that given i got new ones. Can I get money for them as scrap even?

 

[Imported]

I'd make a coffee table.. its what I plan on doing with one of the wheels I damaged in a track day (luckily its a crack that didn't affect level). Otherwise, no clue. Man-cave wall art?

http://jalopnik.com/5976820/this-guy-put-a-whole-bmw-front-clip-in-his-bar

 

[PottedMeat]

they're so bad they'll never hold air?

4 recliner footstools?

 

[manimal]

I have seen some horrible stuff repaired. Send it over. Worst thing they could say is no.

 

[exdeath]

Grind them up and make thermite among other things.

 

[NutBucket]

Take them to a repair shop and see what they say. Try Truwheel in North Hollywood. Last I checked they wanted $125 to repair/repaint a wheel. Sounds like there could be some money in them even after repair.

 

[SyndromeOCZ]

They don't give fortunes for scrapping them, but they do pay. Better than having them sitting around as useless clutter. Though I do think a table would be pretty sweet.

 

[Jumpem]

I have had this place bookmarked for ages: http://www.wheelcollision.com/

Looks like they could repair your wheels, or maybe buy them from you to resell.

 

[hans007]

cool , thanks for the suggestions.

i've seen people try to sell new take offs of these for $1100 online, so i guess depending on how much it costs to replace it could get me a little profit, or maybe a place will buy them.

amazingly replacement rims are $500 each, but i needed reciepts for insurance (otherwise i'd just have bought takeoffs and new tires).

one thing i learned about this, and which is yet another reason to replace all my tires with normal tires when they wear out is that runflats because of their stiffer sidewalls transmit more energy into the wheel itself when you hit curbs / potholes so they actually tend to bend rims more often.

 

[Austin8868]

hang em on the wall

 

[Throckmorton]

How much were your new wheels? I bet it would have been thousands less to get aftermarket ones!

I don't think alloy wheels can be repaired. Make a coffee table and a bench

 

[the DRIZZLE]

I would take them to a local rim repair shop. The one that I went to told me they do buy damaged stock OEM wheels. You could get them repaired for $125-150 a wheel and sell them yourself, but it's probably easier to just take whatever the shop will give you.

 

[JulesMaximus]

How much were your new wheels? I bet it would have been thousands less to get aftermarket ones!

I don't think alloy wheels can be repaired. Make a coffee table and a bench

Yes, they can. I bought a set of used Lexus wheels for my wife's car because she managed to damage two of her front wheels so badly that they couldn't be fixed (or so they say, I'm going to take them to the same place I used to see if that's really true or not-two different places told me this though). Anyway, two of the wheels I bought were also bent and had some curb rash so I took them to a wheel repair place in Kearney Mesa (San Diego) and had them straightened and refinished. They look brand new, balanced perfectly and the car drives like new again.

The dealership wanted $1500 for two new front wheels. I picked up 4 used wheels for less than $400 for the set and the straightening/refinishing cost me $300 for the pair (he checked all 4 wheels, 2 of them were fine). Nice thing is these wheels look better on her car, they are off a 2011 Lexus IS so it makes her car look like a newer model.

 

[phucheneh]

Cast aluminum wheels are pretty limited in the amount they can be fixed, AFAIK. They're not like good ol' steel wheels that can be bashed back into shape with a hammer (...or properly trued by a wheel shop, if that's your thing).

Forged and/or billet/machined wheels are a little better in this regard, I think...but they also generally don't bend without a severe, tire-bursting type of incident.

I would vote 'buy new wheels.' There are lots of decent BMW wheels being made in the popular styles (the BBS-style CSL wheels come to mind) for very reasonable amounts of money. They may only be cast wheels, but they're well-made cast wheels. There are some websites that only do Euro (or just BMW) OEM-fit wheels; dig around a Bimmer forum for some reviews.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Cast aluminum wheels are pretty limited in the amount they can be fixed, AFAIK. They're not like good ol' steel wheels that can be bashed back into shape with a hammer (...or properly trued by a wheel shop, if that's your thing).

Forged and/or billet/machined wheels are a little better in this regard, I think...but they also generally don't bend without a severe, tire-bursting type of incident.

I would vote 'buy new wheels.' There are lots of decent BMW wheels being made in the popular styles (the BBS-style CSL wheels come to mind) for very reasonable amounts of money. They may only be cast wheels, but they're well-made cast wheels. There are some websites that only do Euro (or just BMW) OEM-fit wheels; dig around a Bimmer forum for some reviews.

You would be surprised by how much they can do to repair bent aluminum wheels. I was in the shop when the guy tossed one of the wheels I bought onto his machine and spun it. You could see how badly it was bent as it spun. The curb rash was pretty bad on one of them too with a big chunk of metal taken out of it but they were able to fix it. I originally brought the 2 wheels in to have them refinished. I didn't even know they were bent. Fortunately the other 2 were fine.

What's really interesting is when I took the wheels to have tires put on them and mounted on the car they put the two wheels that were refinished on opposite sides of the car but you can't tell. The only reason I knew is because there was a slight bit of rash on the other 2, very slight though.

I would definitely recommend the OP take his wheels to a wheel repair shop and see if they can fix them.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

How do they repair them? I'm guessing the metal would be weaker where they are repaired but not sure it would be something to be concerned about.

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

I have had this place bookmarked for ages: http://www.wheelcollision.com/

Looks like they could repair your wheels, or maybe buy them from you to resell.

Awesome!
This thread is now a Babe thread

 

[phucheneh]

How do they repair them? I'm guessing the metal would be weaker where they are repaired but not sure it would be something to be concerned about.

That was my question. I think it involves a lot of heat, since the cast aluminum has pretty much nothing in the area of malleability and/or ductility (don't feel like googling to remember the difference right now). Whereas a steel wheel can be brute-forced back into shape (probably some strength loss there, too), applying force to aluminum just cracks it...which is why I've always wondered about the physics of putting a big ol' bend in an aluminum wheel rim in the first place.

But yeah, I'm gonna guess lots of heat + very slow and subtle changes. But I am quite curious as to what that would do to the molecular structure of the metal- seems like you'd end up with areas with much lower density that would be very prone to bending again.

 

[JulesMaximus]

How do they repair them? I'm guessing the metal would be weaker where they are repaired but not sure it would be something to be concerned about.

If you can stand the guy's accent this is a pretty good demonstration of how they can repair a damaged alloy wheel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzR1AHLablg

Here's another video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u-iCWDc7VI

They can straighten bent motorcycle wheels too. A friend of mine bought a set of Marchesini wheels on e-bay for his Ducati and found the front one was bent. He did some research and found a guy in Orange County that is supposedly one of the best in the country at straightening bent Ducati wheels.

 

[Meghan54]

If you can stand the guy's accent

What accent?

 

[hans007]

How much were your new wheels? I bet it would have been thousands less to get aftermarket ones!

I don't think alloy wheels can be repaired. Make a coffee table and a bench

I already bought the new wheels. $2000 + $650 in tires plus labor and an alignment well an insurance claim of $500.


But yeah I guess I'll try to sell the rims to a shop. Maybe I can get a couple hundred

 

[NutBucket]

I doubt the shop will buy them from you. You'll have to get them fixed and then sell them yourself.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Lawn ornaments
Mailbox support
Place pallet on them to get items off wet areas.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

If they're aluminum recycle em.

 

[Richard N]

I've aways wanted to do something like this except on it's own stand instead of mounted to a wall