i rarely drive the car. time to change over steel wheel winter tire combo for the factory 17" mags for the cruiser. asked them to check the balance. "you've got a bent rim". i looked at it on the balance machine. "i'll try and balance it out, go drive on it and come back if you can feel it". i could feel it. i drove by a chrysler dealership and swung in to price a wheel out. $515.86!!! EACH. oh, roughly 10% sales tax on top of that. nice....i was not pleased.

told the tech at the tire shop about my findings and he printed out 8 pages of proper wheels at car-part.com. from gardena ca to florida. i should be able to get a decent one from $200-300. coulda' use that $ for something else.

k

Sorry to hear!

$500 for a PT cruiser wheel? Damn, that means the all 4 are worth more than the vehicle.

OK, OK, Sorry... Good luck and $500 a wheel is more than my audi wheels. Amazing... I guess Chrysler still has loans to pay (us) back.

I don't know what the roads are like up there but down here it's pothole central.

My morning commute feels more like a 20 mile autocross. Some of the potholes here even have cones in them!

the city my wife works in needs $60m to fix roads. doesn't have it. terrible roads. there is absolutely no blemish where the wheel is bent out on the inside edge. these wheels were new replacements for the ones that started suffering from chrome flaking off while under warranty.

k

FYI Chrysler has paid back the loans. GM and the banks on the other hand have not.

Thanks

David

You know, I thought I had heard that as well, then I did some digging and let me tell you that the politicians are having a field day cloaking the real story. BUT enough politics, what I found out in the end is that Chrysler still owes about $12B but only around $2B to the US after much of the debt was somehow dissolved.

Sorry I mentioned the Chryslet debt in the Garage.

This is real common in modern wheels where the webbing is near the outside of the wheel and the inside has very little structural support.

Wheels like yours I just pound out the dent.

Here's what I do:
1) I use a runout gauge and spin the wheel on the car.
2) Find the low point and put a piece of tape on it.
3) Remove the wheel, put on a carpet; I have about a 3x3x8 inch piece of oak to buffer the wheel; Standing on the wheel, I use my sledge hammer about 3 times with moderate force.
4) Remount the wheel and repeat 1-3 until the wheel is straight.

Done this many times on Audi and BMW wheels. I'm sure it's not good for the wheel but $500/wheel isn't good for my wallet.

One time, I had 4 bent rims on my 97 A6. Straightened all 4 of them. This was 7 years ago. Wheels are still on the car.

I chuckle when I hear guys in CA complaining about the roads. You need to drive around the Pittsburgh area to acclimate yourself to what a bad road is.Safety cone for a pothole? There aren't enough safety cones in the country to mark all the potholes around here.

sourced a correct reconditioned wheel out of clio mi for $315 shipping included. looked around for completely dif wheels. none my wife cared for and it would have pushed the swap over $1k when all the dust settled. i hope the new wheel meets my expectations but i've set the satisfaction bar midrange.

k

SO you are describing a technique I could use to straighten my 4 15" Riviera's on my 72 914?

Here's what I found on flebay. Some have free shipping. Yes, I know, sight unseen and on the seller's word is a risk.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&am...ItemCondition=4

And Ford never had one!

About 6 months ago my wife bunged up a wheel so badly on her Milan (17x8) that it couldn't be balanced (lotsa missing metal).

Ford dealer quoted me 615 for a new wheel.

Found a number od new wheels on eBay - all new, not "remanufactured" - overstock. Bought one for $150 including shipping. It was still packed in foam from Ford. However, I'd forgotten that the car had a TPS belt on each each, so that cost me another $55, plus mount & balance. Still came out WAY ahead!

guys, Craigs list! I just bought 4 bmw steel wheels with snow tires and tread for $40...all 4 for $40.
Then while I was looking I found a set of 4 16 inch alloys with tires. He wanted $400 for them, I hemmed and hawed, they wern't moving, so he called me back and I got them for $100 that is 4 bmw alloys with good tires....

It can be done, junk yards just pull the wheels and recycle the alluminum...you might find one though...

This technique works for rims dented by hitting potholes. Low profile tires offer very little protection to rims from hitting potholes. On one such pothole in Newark, NJ on RT78 going about 75mph in my A6, I hit the hole, bent the rim and cut the tire which immediately deflated. Actually bent the front (cut tire too) and bent the rear wheel.

I replaced the front tire and straightened both rims using this method. That was 10 years ago and the wheels are still on the car.

first off, avoid Champion Auto Parts-USA in clio mi like the rat carrying plague infected fleas. i had no idea it is a WRECKING YARD! "are you a drop ship?" "no sir" alrighty then. the wheel was shipped from rockauto.com's wherehouse in il. i've been playing phone tag will a fellow we shall call "tim". i've called every day sometimes twice a day, once from my hospital bed, to resolve this nightmare. "tim' is either 'busy right now" or "on the line with another customer" or at "lunch". bubba, or goober, or goomer all assure me they will "have him call me as soon as he's avail". i've sent pictures to "tim" who forwards them to rockauto. ra has no idea who i am or what this is about. today was critical mass. my tone was not appreciated and bubba or goober hung up on me. call back hangup, repeat, repeat. "are you the guy i keep hanging up on?" "what ever your caller id shows pal" click. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 KLABOOEY!!. KRAKATOA!! ring, ring "listen (long pause obama style), my next call is to chase" "chase who" "you know chase, the credit card co" "what do you think they will do about it" "they will cancel the transaction and credit the money back to my account", "WELL I DON'T THINK SO!!" "yes they will. i get my account credited, you don't have the wheel, and you will still owe rockauto $115 until the wheel is returned to them". "send the wheel back, we'll inspect it to insure it's in acceptable condition, we'll send it to rockauto, and THEN you will receive credit" i've heard that before, think onion, and i wasn't going to have part of this new idea. "i'm done with you. you need to send someone over to pick up the wheel because i'm putting it off my property and i won't be responsible for it", "where are you located?", "tacoma", "what?", "tacoma, like the truck", "tacoma mi?", "no, tacoma wa", "you mean like the state wa?", "exactly, you need to come pick up or get some else to get this wheel", "in washington?", "yes. washington state. not dc". i was done. my turn to click.

i called chase. stephanie and dianna were just super! told them my poor tale of woe...i'm just an innocent consumer...charge credited back to my account as of right now, -$315 for champion, i have their wheel and they still owe ra $115. WINNING!!! sheen style. awaiting email with return instructions. hope it comes thru. they have my phone number if they want to call me. maybe i'll be home when they call. maybe i'll having lunch. maybe i'll be pooping, maybe i'll call them back after while. maybe i'll be in ontario. maybe, maybe, maybe...hard to tell.

edit: maybe i'll just send it to rockauto. they sent me a email with a pre-paid fedex return slip. the brain trust at champion can figure it out. maybe...next week, maybe...oops flying south on fri and home on the 22nd, maybe the 23rd, maybe...

k

Funny. I was going to recommend Rock Auto until I saw that you had already sourced your wheel. They are a bookmarked website for me.

the "wrong" wheel is a looker tho. i can buy 4 of them for $460+shipping. oh forgot...found out from chase that what was supposed to be a $315 total charge turned out to be $336. actual shp was $18 and change.

thanks for the ebay links!! nice how they wrote on one of the spokes of one wheel with felt tip marker. that one is in mi. "gobber! make sure you identify that wheel before you put it on ebay!".

k

alright!...Dependable Wheel Repair in renton wa. the guy was an artist. small single man operation. put the wheel on the spin balancer and marked the ouch. then he put it on a turntable type of machine that had an indicator that just cleared the rim edge. marked a few places and started massaging. big mallet with a chisel end, another 5# maul and small hydrolic tool piece on the turntable. a light smack here, a little stretch hit there. 15 blows max and the wheel was true. took all of 15 minutes from the time i walked thru the door to finish. i couldn't hardly believe it. i had the tire mounted and balanced and it drives out perfectly. GREAT SUCCESS!!!! one less thing to stew over. "tim" sent me an email. now this is no joke, i couldn't open it. the title "shipping info" was pale grey. so i'm not quite sure what it had to say. i'm not too worried about it either. he has time he can send me another.

Glad you got it fixed. I've had to get a 'stock' wheel before and often look at EBAY... seems they are always out there...

gave the wheel to the helpful fellow at the fedex office store this am. gone. end of story. book closed. the fat lady has sung her tune. i hope the boys in clio mi have a fine day.

I have had good luck with Rock Auto. Do you think the main problem was with the Michigan contingent, or was RA part of the mess. I can see how they might not be able to find you when they though that their customer was someone else - with a name that might be different from what you knew them as. Sorry about this one, since you helped me out with a very nice fan. The engine is done as of last night.

Remind me never to buy wheels off you and put peoples lives in your hands!

what a weird statement. sorry if i offend. the procedure you quoted is about what the fix entailed. i don't have a wheel balancer, the other turntable device and wouldn't know where to start. a job best left to the pros in my book. with 2 mauls in hand i would have ruined the wheel for good.

the 'problem' was just too many bagels in the pot. the DROP SHIP vendor, champion, finds a wheel on ra's site and doesn't have a clue what wheel, even with the factory part# and an accurate description, i want. 17"x6" in hyper silver is close to chrome right? not so much. if the guys at champion wouldn't have been such dicks and just said send it back, we all would have been spared a bunch of bs. now they have to deal with RA (tough shit! and i don't care one bit. great actually!) to get their $ back as i have been made 'whole'.

k

Wow, so much money for a crappy wheel.

What an idiotic comment. Friend, a hint: observations are only worthwhile when you know what you're talking about. You don't.

.

The subject of wheel straightening came up a while back and I remember the different techniques that were used worldwide. Some hammered and some compressed or massaged the area down. Bottom line; they all got the same results. I would try Spoke's approach before I even shopped around for another.