GrizzQuattro

I have 2000 1.8TQ with sports pkg and I went to get tires balanced because of vibrations and the shop guy said it's probably the wheels. He said Audi wheels bend easily. I know that's true of the 17" RS4 style wheels but I swear that the 16"s are pretty strong and near impossible to bend. Is he just lying or trying to sell me a set of wheels? or wah?

P.S. How strong are the RS4 17" replica from ACH tuning?

qfrog Ti20

all wheels are easy to bend..... only forged wheels are strong, the rest are mushy aluminum alloy.

paul_858

Heavier cast wheels often resist bending better than forged wheels. If you hit a bad enough pothole/obsticle at the wrong angle with enough force you can bend/crack/shatter any wheel for hte most part. Generally the more material there is put into the wheel the more durable it's going to be. Ronal wheels for example are very strong but also very heavy. They are not prone to bending like other wheels(SSR Comps(semi forged), volk LE-37's(forged), etc etc. Spoke design plays a lot in dictating a wheels structural strength as does barrel shape.

qfrog Ti20

I'm pretty sure I know when I did it, HUGE pothole in jerzy city, I was going like 50mph. Later on when I checked I was surprised I hadnt ****ed the wheel.

Monday when I washed the car I noticed a small imperfection in that wheel(now rotated to rear of car) The lip in one area had a slightly larger gap between the rim guard on the tire. It's not bent inwards, but more outwards. When I get my car back I'm gonna have it fixed.

I'm not sure if the front left wheel is bent, but I'm going to have it sent out for repair becasue it was hit by the car in my sig, head on... and ****ed up my suspension in that corner. I am almost certain it is bent as she did hit it right at the lip.

So I'm at 2 of 4 brand new wheels bent.... only bought them like in MAY so they're like 100 days old or so.

paul_858

still true. They are heavy behemoths and I would not doubt that they would crack/shatter in a major impact well before the metal would fatigue and bend.

OZ Super L's are cast and although they are extremely strong(many spoke design to support the impact evenly throughout the wheel) they can still bend under extreme conditions. More likely they will shatter/break apart at the spokes if impacted hard against a solid object.

qfrog Ti20

yours are moven m2 iirc.

mine have a curviture to the spokes and none of the splits between the spokes extend into the center of the wheel.

I believe that good forged wheels are the only ones that are hard to bend.

NHAvant

repair a wheel and they want $125 and then another $25 to mount and balance. Seems a bit on the high side. Bumming since i just put the RS4 reps on about 2 weeks ago and drove into a small cavern of a pothole here in MA this week. looks like one slightly out of shape.

Thanks

paul_858

semi forged SSR Comps or forged Volks. Forgeline makes a racing oriented wheels that are very strong and relatively light however they are ugly for the most part. For racing it's not a big deal since appearances is last on the list of important things to have.

qfrog Ti20

the place angry alex uses charges like $80 or so

wheel collision center is about $75 but they add $25 to take it off the car, take the tire off of it, and then reverse that when its done. So they really charge $100. http://www.wheelcollision.com

Wheels America www.fixrim.com charges about $109 as a flat rate.

AWOT extra 23052

The manufacturing process and alloy chosen has considerably more to do with strength than just the amount of metal. Case in point, I know several people who have bent stock Avus (Ronal) 17s on the same roads I drive on, I have 18 OZ Superleggeras, and haven't had any problems. The Avus weights in at a wopping 27ish lbs per wheel while the Supers tip the scales at 18.2 lbs (yeah, I weighted them).

Wheel diameter also plays a big part. If you can compress a 55 series tire (what are on 16s I believe) enough to bend a 16" wheel, it doesn't matter what they're made from, that is a damn hard hit