idoru

Seen plenty of places that offer repair/refurb services for damaged alloys. Does anyone have experience/words of caution about getting alloys fixed in this manner? I'm in North London, UK.

Scratch came about while having a tyre changed - the tyre centre has offered to get the rim repaired at their cost. My feeling is I should give them the opportunity to put things right, and then if the result is not acceptable to escalate the matter and press them to cough for a brand new rim.

However, would I be better off choosing a repairer myself and then billing the tyre centre, or let them handle it?

Appreciate any input.

Rudy

All I know is that when my wheels were at the dealership for my Dunlop replacements, I had them repair a curb rash on one of my factory (124) wheels. They have a guy who comes to the shop once a week -- he repaired the wheel perfectly. You can't find where he did it at all.

It cost about $100 which is certainly cheaper than replacing the wheel.

BMWJIMT

I live in London area, I kerbed an alloy a while ago leaving a horrible 2'' mark on the rim. I used a company called Chips Away & would certainly recommend them.
Their engineer came to my house & repaired the wheel in situ. It was not cheap, around ?60, but I honestly cannot see where the damage was..

kermit777

I must tell you that with the stupid runflat tyres, it's kind of normal that they scratch the wheel. It happend twice to me as well and the "excuse" they use is that the tyre structure is so hard that it is very difficult to avoid it....(at BMW, I mean). So what I did : I went to a tyre specialist and he changed them without any scratch (must say that the guy is pretty good equipped, better thant my usual BMW dealer). For the scrath on your wheel, I you where living in Belgium, I know someone who does it for 50 euros. You can't tell that the wheel has been repaired. He did mine by the way. Good luck

Rudy

My BMW dealer mounted four runflats without scratching the wheels. It's true that the process is extremely difficult but that's not an excuse to accept any damages to the wheel. (The service tech even joked with me about how he'd quit his job before he'd mount another set of those damn tires!)

I'd only go to a place that I trust (the dealer or other specialist that has "adult" technicians -- not 18 year old "tire mechanics") and even then, I'd get a record of the condition of the wheels prior to them touching them...

idoru

Thanks for the input everyone - it is clear that repairing the tyres is indeed a valid option that should hopefully yield a positive outcome. I'll find out who they use to do it, and proceed from them. The car will have to wear the spare for a few days, which is a pain, but such is life.

Rudy - I take your point about the difficulties of removing RFTs... which is why I had a long discussion with the tyre centre manager on three seperate occasions on precisely that point. I suspect the scratched rim was the first tyre they changed (I was swapping out all four for non-runflats) and I guess they hadn't quite got the hang of it...

Rudy

One thing to note about wheel repairs -- my repairs were done after the new tires were mounted. I assumed the repair had to be done with no tire mounted but the repair guy had some sort of machine that pushes the tire away from the rim enough to do the repair. The reason they do it this way is so that the repaired rim isn't damaged again (also something about the fresh repair needing time to dry or set before the stress of a tire mounting takes place.)

After the repair, they do the balancing and you're off.

The moral of the story is if you think you're going to be getting new tires and also have some wheel repairs done, get the tires mounted first, then get the wheel repaired, then get the wheel balanced (or rebalanced if needed).

northernmonkey

If i damaged a wheel *myself* then i would definitely get it refurbed as there are some excellent guys in the SE of the UK.

however, if someone else i.e a company damaged it then i'd push them first for a new wheel, afterall it was perfect when you took it in, failing that i'd insist on a repairer that you choose for which they will pay the bill, unless of course they have someone in mind that you know already has a good reputation.

I can highly recommend a guy we use, he is based in the SE of UK so depending where you are he might come to you. I got his number via my BMW service advisor as he does most of the work for the BMW dealers in Surrey/Hants area.

drop me a PM if you want his number.