Nailed a curb, rim damage | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

Nailed a curb, rim damage

wolf2989

Member
Joined
January 25, 2009
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Need some input. This past Saturday i had a run-in with an with a curb and my passenger side rear wheel (Will give story below). The rim took a beating on the curb, lip is rolled into itself in one spot and one of the spokes has a nice gouge in it. The tire is still holding air just fine and i don't notice any shimmy or shaking while at highway speeds. Somehow or another my alignment is out of whack a few degrees to the right.

I'll take some pictures when i get home of the tired and upload them for more in depth look, but from the sounds of it do i need to replace the rim? Can a shop bend the lip back out and save it? I'm not too concerned with aesthetics but i can't be dropping $400 on a new OEM rim right now (Its a '07 Limited).

Story: So i'm sitting at a light on freshly snow covered roads waiting to make a left in the turn lane. Light goes to yellow and then to red while i'm in the intersection. I begin to make my turn when i notice headlights coming at me fairly quickly (from across from the road i was turning from). Some old man is completely out of control trying to stop his car before going through the red light and smashing into me. Rather then allow him to t-bone me, i floor it as i'm turning. 4x4 high was engaged at the time so the front wheels caught some traction and got me out of the intersection (We're talking 16" inches he missed me by) but unfortunately my rear wheels slipped and started taking me sideways. I had no time (nor space) to get it stopped and a curb caught my rear passenger wheel hard.

I'm about to make a dukes of hazzard 180 to go chase the old man down, but he's already sailed through the red light and on his merry way. Now there's also traffic on the road that makes it impossible for me to spin around. So he got away. :(
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





As long as it's still balanced and there is no damage to the tire itself you should be fine, but keep in mind that your driving on a fractured rim and a small crack can turn into a huge problem. Personally I would take it to a rim repair shop that has a good rep. see what their report is and go from there.
 






If you havent checked out EBay for rims take a look, I know you can usually find used rims for a decent price.
 






I would have a rim repair shop look at it, compare that to prices on fleabay, and also research a "gently used" one at your local junkyard...available @ www.car-part.com

The old man probably made a beeline to his house, waddled in and changed his shorts anyway, so you didn't really want to catch him.
 






I'd be more concerned with getting the suspension issue resolved. could be an accident waiting to happen. alot worse than the tire loosing air in the comming weeks.
 






Sorry it took so long, got the pictures.

ZElSY.jpg


0257v.jpg
 






I've seen worse repaired at a professional wheel repair shop. Good ones are even able to "add material" where the wheel was sheared off. Then are are rebalanced, checked for roundness, polished and or painted.
 






I'd be real leery of that. Cast aluminum doesn't bend very much before it starts cracking.
 






I bent a stock Mounty rim worse than that--way worse. It is in at least 3/8"
right on the bead.
I put them on an old Dodge truck, wore out a set of tires, sold the truck to my neighbor across the street. He put on new tires. 4 years later it is still holding a bead and I am buying the truck back for half of what I sold it for.

That rim will be fine if you can ignore it IMO for normal speeds.

For a few days I would monitor the tire pressure real carefully. if you notice air loss it might be cracked.
 






Well its been about 4 days, and air pressure hasn't budged.

Just came back from local auto shop. They basically said rim is "kinda" screwed up, but should be ok. Said tire was in fine shape, rim took all the damage.

They did say that its likely not the alignment that's off, but i likely bent something when i hit the curb (Thus causing the steering wheel to be off center now). They said they'd need it for a couple of hours to figure out since its a multi-link rear setup there's a few things that could be bent. They did say nothing was cracked, severely bent or highly stressed.

At this point i'm thinking of taking it to the dealer and have them give me an estimate. If its more then $700 or so i may just make an insurance claim on it ($500 deduc).

Any insight on what could be bent? If its a control arm back there, how much am i looking at to get that replaced? I figure if i have the dealer replace the rim, they already told me $384 for a new rim.

Meh. So pissed off, I swear if i ever see that old man again I'm punching him squarely in the d*ck.
 






i would bet you bent lower control arm toward the outboard end right before the ball joint. I've towed a few of these that side slid into curbs and based on the relatively minor rim damage I can't imagine any worse damage to the suspension.good luck!
 






Minor update for those waiting and wondering (I know you're out there)

Took it dealer, guess how much the 2007 Explorer LTD rims are (18" non polished)? With the tire pressure band and labor, $1100! Yay! So immediately i called insurance and put in a claim. Dealer is working on it now.

They claim i didn't do any suspension damage but cannot explain the steering wheel being off-kilter. They're going to replace rim, alignment and see if that straightens things out.

We'll see.

On a funnier side note, i asked the dealer how much it would be as an option to get the upgraded rims on a new explorer and he says "About $1200". I don't say anything and just keep looking at him. After about 20 awkward seconds he goes "Yeah, that's pretty ####ed up huh".

Idiots.
 












I had meant to ask if you had tried swapping in the spare to see if it drove any better.
 






Odd they dont give you a credit for the LTD rims when they upgrade the rims at the stealership when it's new. Pure profit!
 






Back
Top