Straightening Alloy Wheels

They can be straightened, but it takes proper technique

A bent wheel
Bill Abbott / Flickr / Creative Commons

Have you ever bent a wheel on a pothole or raised manhole cover that made your whole car vibrate? Has a mechanic ever told you that alloy wheels couldn't be straightened and you had to spend $500 to $600 on a brand-new wheel? This happens all too often, but it isn't true. Many specialty workshops and refinishing companies have been straightening wheels for decades.

What Are Alloy Wheels?

The so-called "aluminum" wheels on passenger cars today are composed of an alloy of aluminum and nickel. The proportions of aluminum versus nickel in the alloy have an enormous effect on the properties of the alloy. Less nickel generally produces a lighter wheel, but one that bends much more easily due to the softness of the alloy. More nickel produces a heavier wheel that is harder to bend but is correspondingly more brittle and can crack more easily than softer alloy wheels.

Why Wheels Bend

If you've damaged one of your alloy wheels, usually some form of impact was involved. Whether it was a pothole, raised manhole cover, or curb, plenty of obstacles can bend a wheel. Because the spokes have to be on the front side of the wheel, it's almost always easier to bend the wheel on the back, or “inboard” side, making it difficult to see the bend when the wheel is on the car. In these cases, the bend usually announces itself by causing the car to vibrate.

Put Down the Hammer

When wheels were all steel, a good mechanic could pound a bent steel wheel out with a hammer. This technique wasn't precise and usually couldn't do anything about vibration, but it could bend the steel back to the point where it could make contact with the tire and hold air.

Some mechanics still offer to “hammer out” bent aluminum wheels. Never allow anyone to hammer out your aluminum wheels, because the most likely outcome is a cracked or destroyed wheel. Even if it doesn't crack, the alloy will be damaged and will never be the same.

How to Straighten a Wheel

There are several processes for straightening alloy wheels, including cold roller technology and hydraulic assistance technology.

Cold roller technology involves placing a powered roller against the wheel and pressing the bend out as the wheel spins on a lathe. Because this process is performed without heat, it carries an elevated risk of cracking the wheel, and no actual metallurgy or annealing (heating) is performed. Cold roller technology is also generally restricted to radial bends, because most machines can't affect the wheel laterally. There are also a number of straightening techniques based on using a lathe in some form, but most are proprietary and secret in some manner.

Hydraulic assistance involves placing the wheel on a rack, which centers the wheel so it can be read out with a dial gauge, then heated. A skilled operator uses hydraulic rams at various points on the rack as mechanical assistance to press out bends in the heated metal. This has several advantages over other forms of straightening:

  • The operator can affect the wheel both radially and laterally, so this technology is capable of straightening bends that others can't.
  • Heating the wheel in the spot to be repaired softens the alloy and makes it much less likely that it will crack under the pressure required to straighten the bend.
  • The operator is controlling the process rather than watching an automated process work. A good straightener will have a feel for the metal and can usually tell if the alloy is soft or brittle and if the wheel is about to crack under pressure.
  • Aluminum alloy has a crystalline inner structure at the molecular level. When the alloy is bent, this crystalline structure can be broken up, negating the strength of the metal at that point. The alloy must be heat-treated, or annealed, to make it strong again.
  • If the crystalline structure of the wheel isn't annealed, the wheel is weaker at the point where the bend was and subsequent impacts can more easily cause the metal to return, or "snap back," to its previous bent position. Operators say the metal has “retained a memory” of its previous state, which is why erasing that memory by annealing the inner structure of the metal is such an important part of the process.

Beware of gadgets on the market that claim to help straighten wheels. Usually, these involve two crescent-shaped metal blocks with a hydraulic ram between them. Supposedly, one places the crescent blocks inside the curve of the wheel and uses a foot pump to spread the blocks until the bend is removed. That's a good way to destroy a wheel.

Disclosure

Hydraulic assistance is a proprietary technology developed by Rim & Wheel Works Inc., a company owned and operated by the author and his family.