ivansis

Got 3 wheels bent due to potholes on NJ roads!

Dealer is fixing them but this is very annoying!
car only has 3,500mi and i run michelin AS tires.
I don't drive a lot and car is leased so i couldn't justify getting full winter setup.

Just be careful out there on 19s oems.

p.s. filing a claim seems to be a waste of time. Did anyone ever able to get any $$$ from this?

heisnuts

I assume you were getting a really bad vibration at speed due to the bent wheels?

Alaa Ghannam

i feel you my e300 has 19" rims with pirelli run flats. Have gone through 12 tires due to bubbles in the side walls from nj potholes.

ivansis

not bad but prompted my visit. Thankfully no bubbles on tires.

ghostrider990

Ouch.
If youre not filing a claim for replacement, how exactly are they FIXING bent rims???

If they are replacing OEM rims, it can be Alot cheaper to simply buy a full set of aftermarkets, and sell the one good OEM rim.

just a thought

markcincinnati

For YEARS, the above chain of posts was me -- and I would, as the song goes, say: WHY ME?


But, the first time I strayed from Audi -- and I went with a new 2012 Acura TL SH-AWD / Advance (meaning it came with the 19" wheels and lower profile tires), THREE of the wheels were bent (and I assumed it couldn't be that I, little ol' me, bent them.) I protested and Acura went ahead and replaced the wheels, but not the tires. What a dumass I was, in retrospect of course, for I had traded in a 2009 Audi A4 2.0T Prestige (meaning it came with the 19" wheels and lower profile tires) on the Acura -- and the Audi had one bent wheel, so badly messed up it couldn't be road force balanced.

After a string of dozens of Audis, almost all of them with the + sized optional wheels (and almost all of them had at least ONE pothole story of note) -- why didn't I learn?

I mean -- with no offense to my fellow Audi World travelers -- very few of us are really good enough drivers (and we can't drive "hard" in the traffic we face on a daily basis anyhow) to even know if we're on 18" UHP tires/wheels or 19" UHP tires/wheels. But we're (speaking for myself) so intent on having the "cool looking wheels" we go ahead and buy them (sometimes at great expense) and just keep replacing damaged tires, short-lived tires, and/or bent wheels. Then, guess what, that shiny new Audi comes out and we do the exact same thing again (the definition of insanity).

Either I got old, less willing to light $100 bills on fire, or maybe I just got tired of fooling myself. A nearly $61,000 Audi S4 is a hell of a performance car -- able to leap tall buildings with a single bound -- without the vanity of the 19" fragile (but beautiful) wheels. I've taken, now, four Audi driving schools in Seefeld, Austria. One BMW driving school in South Carolina, and one Porsche driving school here in Ohio. I'm as good as I'm ever gonna get -- the cars just keep getting better which helps me LOOK like I'm getting to be a better driver. In any case, what I know doesn't do anything for my circumstances in SW Ohio, America, on 19" wheels and tires. I would not take them if they were a no-cost option (unless free replacement wheels and tires were included.) In fact, I wouldn't take them with the free replacements because they increase unsprung weight, they decrease ride comfort slightly, they do not -- as a practical matter since I am not a test driver for Car & Driver magazine -- improve the performance or mileage or anything else useful. Audi needs to offer -- and I'd pay for them -- an 18" wheel that looks (i.e., we're talking aesthetics only) exactly like the 19" babies.

None (OK almost none) of us poor inglorious basterds have any business (beyond the ability to appreciate the aesthetic improvement offered, currently, only by the 19" wheel option) to waste time and treasure replacing bent wheels and bulging tires (and the all-wheel alignments that goes with). We just need to face it -- the "dumbest" most wasteful option offered on the current S4 is the 19" wheel.

Unless you live where the roads and streets are "perfect."

I don't live there.

Seems like a lot of us "inglorius basterds" don't either.

Demand good looking 18" wheels -- save the rubber trees! Save the mag wheels! Save yourself!

There's a lobster loose.

Carry lemons and cover yourself with melted butter -- just in case.

Have a nice day.

cheewy

whereabouts in NJ so I know to be cautious when I'm driving through.

njspeedfreak

Yep. Jersey driver here (should be obvious from my username). Had 19" peelers on my B8 S4 for 5 years and 100K miles. When I traded that for the B9 S5 I specifically ordered the 18" wheels even though I hate the way they look on the car. I was lucky that I never actually bent one of the OEM peelers, but I did blow out some tires and bubble a few sidewalls.

Interestingly enough, I did bend 3 of my 18" winter wheels during that span, but they were cheap aftermarket wheels from Tire Rack that cost less for a set of 4 than one OEM replacement cost. I almost view them as disposable - one set of winter wheels and tires will last me the life of a car which is 5 years. Then I get a new car and a news set of winter wheels and tires. And I try to run those as late into the spring as possible since late May and early April seem to be peak pothole season here.

mpatel1080

How in the world did you bend a rim without even a bubble (much less a blow out) in a tire?

mplsbrian

1. They measure and mark the runout area, and then heat it up and pound it back into round pneumatically with a purpose-built machine. Some of these machines are mobile and fit in the back of vans and services like Dentwizard will come to you, jack your car up, and do it for minor bends in the parking lot of your workplace whereas more advanced repairs can be done with a machine that can cost $70,000+ and will fix crazy damage to like-new condition. The biggest challenge with alloy wheel repair is when you curb one or wreck the lip such that they need to go through paint which can be tricky to match especially with tricoats and machined faces and a variety of clearcoat luster levels, which it takes a true artist to match sometimes. But most commonly pothole damage doesn't need to go through paint.

2. It costs $100 to fix a bent wheel (if it doesn't need paint) and that includes pickup, repair, and delivery back to whereever it was picked up from (often the dealer). A single new 19" factory OEM wheel for our '18 S4s, on the other hand, $828.77 from the dealer's parts department...plus whatever it costs to ship your damaged one that you sold for half that price or less on ebay, and the cost of a dismount, remount, and balance for your rubber to the new wheel. Not really practical.