Follow up to tire shop blowing up rim!!
 

Just got word after having to call several times that my rim is unrepairable. They will not be paying to replace it as they say the wheel was shaved (??) which caused it to fail upon install. What is my recourse on this one?? I'm sick to my stomache right now. Is this possible ?? They installed new tires on the other three rims just fine.

I'm not sure about any legal issues here, but I had a thought... my tires say on the side to never use more than 40 psi to seat the beads. But when I went to put my newly mounted tires and wheels on the car a couple weeks ago, I found them inflated at 57 psi!!! (Mental note: Always check your own pressures after getting new tires mounted.) Could the shop have used too much air to pop them out to the rim which caused the failure? Of course, proof would be very hard.

Questions:
- solid or hollow spoke ?
- find out what they mean by "shaved"
- pictures ?

Would be interested to know what kind of tire machine they have also. I am surprised how many tire shops have not invested in newer machines.

I have a few years of hands-on experience mounting and balancing tires for my own 993 and many performance cars/tires. Prior to that I saw what some tire shops had to go through to mount without the newer/proper equipment.

They are specialists. They could have inspected your rim and refused to mount the ryre. By taking on the job of mounting the tyres (a legal contract between the two of you) they accepted the rims as is.

Certainly, if THEY can not determine a fault, how should you ? They will now have to PROOVE that there was prior damage by means of an analysis performed by a qualified materials specialist.

Even then, it is a matter weather their in-sewer-ants deems they made a fault and won't cover the failure they've had to reimbourse you for.

Peter R.

Shaved? Is this some crazy technique to reduce weight? If so, were they?

With the assumption that they have not been modified, I would ask the manager if it is worth the cost of repairing the wheel for them not to have you picket in front of their store for a day or two with a big sign (and the wheel) that says "Dissatisfied Customer, ask me about it", while you file a complaint with the BBB from your cell phone. If that doesn't work, call the local reporter who does the consumer advocate type stuff and let him interview and film you while you picket.
They would be getting off cheap by repairing the wheel. I know how frustrating this type of thing can be. Your time probably isn't worth the cost of the repair, but the satisfaction is priceless. Good luck!

I have had two rims damaged by a tire shop and both were repaired at the shops expense. Both were bent though, not split. I'd want an expanation of what they mean by "shaved" since you have three more of the same wheel which could be suspect.

I'd imagine a call to the owner/manager/corp office might get this resolved, but it might just be easier to seek out someone to replace the rim half and be done with it - assuming the other 3 are okay.

I thought this rim was sent to TireRack. Is this TireRack's response or the original installer?

he said shaved possibly trying to true or balance it

tire rack just determined they no longer had the parts, the tire shop just determined it wasn't theyre fault

IMHO this sounds like B.S..... but if this is true, you have potential issues with the three other rims and the shop should have examined these as well...if they didn't they have arguably been negligent and you should point this out to them to help your case for a settlement.

In any case, I think you may want to just sell the remaining three rims and move on to something else.

Think you need to fully understand the shaved issue, not an expert but never heard of shaving a rim. If it was modified in some mannor, probably time to buy a new wheel. If not, I would go the path of small claims court if escellations with store & district mgt. are not successful. Usually cheeper in both legal fees and company reputation to buy you the rim than show up in small claims court.

It sucks to have your wheel destroyed. I do want to throw in a few things. I will make the assumptions in my comments that there were no visual signs of damage to the wheel before they were mounted by the installer.

First, a failure like this is more the result of manufacturer / materials and not the installer. It is impossible for the shop to determine if a rim is shaved is still road worthy, or a rim in general with out VERY visible signs of fatigue is still OK. That is the potential liability / fault of the wheel manufacturer (various metals for the rims etc) and potentially in combination with the place that may have refinished it (was there enough thickness to refinish before or after?). Second, having owned the best tire equipment on the market I can tell you that installing tires is still just dangerous. There is no way 99% of the tires we use on these types of cars will bead all the way with just 40 PSI. Especially on some of the wider rims with low profile tires. The sidewalls are just too stiff, and the variability of rim tolerances with tire manufacturer tolerances and compounds make for usually a tough install. I am spending close to $15K for a tire machine that does everything except make Espresso. But there is nothing to help seat the beads onto the rim except Lube (I even use a 2 part super slipperly combination) and pressure.

I would be going back to the manufacturer with the problem.... I am also glad no one was hurt.

My personal opinion...
At porsche over here, the same issue happened to several people whom I saw coming back and complaining of diameter lines on the rims.
In fact, they found out that the guy who installs the wheels, was partly responsible.
Facts showed that the machine that unmounts the tyres from the wheels, has to rest on the rim with a rubber between the machines arm and the wheel rim. When this arm rests, the mechanic retrieves the arm about 1-2 mm from the rim, this way it does not scratch the wheel when it turns.
This rubber piece, if you forget to give the 1-2mm space, will rub and eventually fall off.
So mechanics will replace the rubber by a cloth, a sticker, a paper, and anything handy, before retrieving the arm a couple of mm.
Imagine without the rubber, and the mehanic forgets to retrieve the arm a bit.
This happened to my car, and the guy was honest showing me what happened.
they changed the machine since... they bought a corghi, the one VB is talking about...

After reading vb's comments I feel I should cut my losses and get some new rims. However I just can't get this bad taste out of my mouth that they are somehow to blame.

I know that it is tough. You have a perfectly good wheel, you want new tires and now you are faced with having to get new wheels. The thing I will also mention is a rim half that may be fatigued could also come apart on the street under load. Could be in a turn, over a train track, etc. So I know it is distastful to be faced with a large expense. I am just glad that you were not driving when this could have happened....