Hey everyone,

Just bought some lmgt4's 18x9.5 all around. LM's were painted black, which i don't really care about since i was planning to have them powdercoated. anyway, one wheel has this deformity, can't really explain what it is because i'm not a wheel expert. to me, it looks like someone welded another piece of metal onto it (crack repair?), and if the pics come out detailed enough, you'll understand what i'm talking about. Can anyone tell if this is a bend, crack, or normal? the guy i bought them from is willing to give me a refund within 7 days (paypal), and didn't tell me about this until i received the wheels. he said they were on his r32 and someone sprayed brake cleaner on them thinking they were helping him remove the dirt from the wheels and this happened. the brake cleaner might explain the paint coming off, but doesn't explain whatever the h#ll this is. bought the set for 1k, do you think i should send it back? i DO plan to track the car. also going to the shop tomorrow to get it examined, but just wanted to get feedback here first.

thanks.

 

Does not appear to me to be a simple case of spraying brake cleaner and taking off the paint. I am no expert either, but I agree that it looks like a crack repair. I wouldn't trust that repair. I'd return em and look for another set, or try to find a single replacement.

 

I'm no wheel repair expert either, but when I put tires on my LM's I don't remember seeing that. Since it is a forged monoblock there should be no imperfections like that because of the machining process.

 

That looks like a poor repair but I would get a professional opinion to be certain.

 

thanks for the comments. yea the more i stare at it the less comfy i feel tracking these wheels. dkmesa/waizzz yeah it really seems like quickly patched up cracks, although i've only seen 1 structurally damaged lmgt4 before and it was only a bend...which makes me wonder what happened. ruthless thanks for the info, i checked the other 3 wheels over and you're right they have no imperfections like this. looks like i'll send them back after the body shop checks it out

 

Those are certainly not from brake cleaner as well so who knows what really happened to them.

I would just return them and pickup a set from the marketplace instead.

 

LMGT4's are forged and I don't think it's a good idea to either weld or powdercoat them since they had a special heat treatment...

 

^ I wouldnt weld a forged 1 piece wheel... powder coating them does absolutely nothing negative to them. Look up how Ray's forges their wheels before you make comment without knowing what your talking about. Op those look to have been repaired.

 

got them checked out, yep theyve been repaired-or at least that specific wheel. thanks for the help everyone, i'm sending them back for a refund today. only problem w/the marketplace lmgts is that no one wants to separate and i really don't want the flat non-concave 8.5 staggered wheels on the front. to be honest i've heard so many pros/cons about powdercoating it really doesn't bother me. i'm not a metallurgist so i can't be sure if it's safe but i do know some powdercoaters can powder w/the temps under 400 or 300 or something like that to supposedly prevent aluminum wheels from developing microcracks. anyway, time for volks

 

Not true. They use a very specific heat cycle in their process, not anything like powdercoating. In a very basic sense, it 'ages' the wheel. If you powder coated them repeatedly, you would actually make them brittle, not soft. Plus, if they try to bake off the previous coating, as they typically do with steel wheels from rigs, you will come close to annealing the aluminum, not good at all for a forged wheel... but most good shops know to keep the temps in check.

I'd bail on those wheels. Not that I wouldnt roll on a repair, but the story is fishy and that doesnt look like a good repair anyway.

 

yeah, they were repaired..you can tell.I had a set of rims that I have welded and it looked just like that.within a few weeks it started leaking air..they welded twice after the third time I gave up a just threw the rim away..REFUND....