The joys of lightweight alloy wheels...

Durzel

Durzel

Durzel

Soldato
Joined
10 Oct 2003
Posts
5,518
Location
Wiltshire
Hit a pothole the other day, or possibly even an inset storm drain, either way it wasn't a remarkable event until I happened to notice this on the car this morning...

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It's only the lip that's buckled, and the tyre isn't losing air, but even so it's annoyed me.. :(

Second time this has happened to these alloys, they're "semi solid forged" apparently which basically means they're very light, but hitting a pothole results in the above, without fail. :(

Had a quote from the place that refurbished them last year (wanted a different colour) for £100+VAT, just to fix one wheel! :(
 
Firestar_3x said:
Look like SSR's to me.
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Yup, SSR Type-C RS.

A search of Google seems to show that this is a problem with these alloys. :(

Clarkey said:
Tiny rubber band tyres are the issue here really.
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Not a lot I can do about that really, OEMs are 17" - need 225/35 tyres to maintain the same rolling radius (+/- ~1%)

ScoobyDoo69 said:
And how much do they weigh in at ?
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I believe they are about 8.5lb.

PhillyDee said:
hit it with a hammer.
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I asked the refurb place if I could (should) do that and they seemed to think there was a risk it would split or something.
 
Get some Compomotives, hard as nails....though not especially light and the paint finish is not always that great (when compared to the likes of OZ and Speedline).
 
Apparently too low. :(

It's only 35 though, you can get lower. As said it's purely to keep the rolling radius the same so the speedo doesn't get thrown out.
 
I slightly buckled one of my Enkei's on my old car.

Caused all sorts of havoc when i had to get new tyres and have them balanced!
 
Thought you had a black EP3? Vinyl wrap?

Unlucky on the wheel, I have one that looks like that at the back on a set I want to refurb, although nowhere near as bad. Will you get it fixed or replaced?
 
35 isnt exactly uber low profile, my OEM rears are 255/35/18, so it's only a 15mm difference in sidewall height, and a mm from the stock 19" rears on the 335i
 
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Dup said:
Thought you had a black EP3? Vinyl wrap?

Unlucky on the wheel, I have one that looks like that at the back on a set I want to refurb, although nowhere near as bad. Will you get it fixed or replaced?
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Yeah, white vinyl wrap.

Will get the wheel fixed, I buckled it before, exactly the same circumstances - hit a random pothole and it ended up looking like the above pics.

Will probably consider what I will do afterwards with them. I'm a pretty careful driver (none of them are kerbed) but you can never totally prepare yourself for random potholes, and it's not like the one I hit to buckle it was a big one (that I remember).

I'm not alone either anyway...
 
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I'd pop a piece of wood over the rim to protect it and see if you can encourage that back yourself. Aluminium can't take a lot of bending, but if they are forged it is a lot more ductile than cast.
 
Jonny69 said:
I'd pop a piece of wood over the rim to protect it and see if you can encourage that back yourself. Aluminium can't take a lot of bending, but if they are forged it is a lot more ductile than cast.
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This is what I thought when I saw the fisrt photo. You should be able to knock that back into shape yourself quite easily, and if you take it to a wheel repairer, they'll only do the same. Although it looks like the inner part of the rim is slightly bucked (thie inside of the lip), which you'll probably struggle to 'dress' out.

Then sell the wheels and buy some 17s. :p
 
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