Opinion: WTF happened to this wheel?

[mdisher]

OK, I'm at a loss.

Son says he didn't hit anything that he's aware of. So WTF happened to this wheel?

Front left, drivers side. 1999 Chrysler Cirrus...

Interestingly, the insides are totally rotted. I highly suspect all (4) are like this now.

This tire did have a slow leak, and had been remounted twice... The wheel rot was never mentioned to me an all four tires are less than 3 mos old.

Full size images in the Gallery here: https://picasaweb.google.com/mdisher/1999CirrusFrontWheel#

Thoughts? I suspect I should replace all (4), but I'm not really in a mood to spend $800 in wheels at the moment...

-MD

 

[kurt]

Pothole.

 

[rushes]

Yup, seen that before.

Raised 3 boys myself.

Weird stuff sometimes just "happens".

Hang in there. He'll be buying his own cars and insurance before you know it...

 

[escapefjrtist]

Pothole.

+ 9 years of salt and a teenage driver...Is that some tire scuffing in the pic? Could have tapped a curb while parking and the pot hole did it in.

--G

 

[mdisher]

It gets better... Matching wheels via flea-bay are ~$100 each plus shipping. Of course nobody has (4), at least not that I've found yet.

So we're gonna go crazy and put a set of these on it:

For $320 mounted, balanced, out the door...

I only have to get through the winter with this stupid car.

-MD

 

[monk69]

Looks like he could have run over something(possibly covered from sight in the snow),and a new driver might not have the developed ID skills to detect what happened at the time.

 

[OGRE]

I would say he hit a solid object, probably a curb,at an angle(as apposed to straight on) at moderate speed( tire has to compress to get to the rim). If there was snow on the roads or parking lots, loss of control and this type of damage can occur too quickly for a young driver to be able to react and correct.

 

[dbvolfan]

Having done just that in my mom's 1984 Chrysler minivan almost 23 yrs ago to the date, I vote pothole. I managed to take it one step further and leave the sheared off oil pan sitting in the road as well and a trail of oil for ~200'. That pic of the rim looks identical to what our rim looked like after finding the pothole.

 

[kawabeemer]

Can you say "Where the hell did that curb come from?". Obviously he ran over something big enough to break the rim. Not much chance of the rim spontaneously self destructing.

 

[mdisher]

Can you say "Where the hell did that curb come from?". Obviously he ran over something big enough to break the rim. Not much chance of the rim spontaneously self destructing.

Yeah... I find it hard to believe he doesn't know what he hit or when... But that's his story and he's sticking to it. I do suspect it was already cracked, or cracking, and I do believe I'd have noticed it if I'd done this.

kids... Gotta love em, cause it's illegal to kill them.

-MD

 

[bramfrank]

I agree - an age-weakened wheel met up with a pothole.

If you followed the apparently highly politicised thread where I explained it, you know that I found an extra-clean set of OEM chrome wheels for my Chrysler LHS for $200 plus shipping, complete with the hard to find $50 apiece center caps on EBAY. Since most people are asking $125 or so without the caps, I jumped at it and they now have my snow tires mounted on them for half of what it would have cost to use steel.

Ebay can be your friend.

Otherwise just buy painted steel aftermarket wheels for less than $100 each and save the difference.

 

[mdisher]

I agree - an age-weakened wheel met up with a pothole.
If you followed the apparently highly politicised thread where I explained it, you know that I found an extra-clean set of OEM chrome wheels for my Chrysler LHS for $200 plus shipping, complete with the hard to find $50 apiece center caps on EBAY. Since most people are asking $125 or so without the caps, I jumped at it and they now have my snow tires mounted on them for half of what it would have cost to use steel.

Ebay can be your friend.

Otherwise just buy painted steel aftermarket wheels for less than $100 each and save the difference.

So far I have only found one set with caps on ebay and the guy wants $600 bones. That's way tooooo much. It looks like plain ol' steel wheels will set me back $50-60 a piece so I'm gong to splurge and get those black Saitek's for ~$80 each.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Do you have a Discount Tire around where you live? They have nice wheels for pretty cheap.

 

[mdisher]

Do you have a Discount Tire around where you live? They have nice wheels for pretty cheap.

Well round here they are Tire Discounters: https://www.tirediscounters.com/

And it's not like I live in the sticks, well OK I do, but the Cincy/Indy/Kentucky Tri-state area is pretty large and all.

 

[SilverHound]

Pfft..I would just go down to the nearest car bone yard, buy four basic black steel wheels and tell your kids if they're embarrassed to drive the car like that they should either learn to take better care of things or fess up when they screw up. When my oldest daughter started to drive I gave her my '97 Jetta that I had bought new and even though it had 120K miles on it was in pretty good shape. Over the next four years she had several "geez dad, I have no idea how that happened" episodes and unless the damage was a safety hazard I just left it the way it was or made an ugly repair. Now that she has her own first car that she is paying for, she takes really good care of it.

 

[mdisher]

Pfft..I would just go down to the nearest car bone yard, buy four basic black steel wheels and tell your kids if they're embarrassed to drive the car like that they should either learn to take better care of things or fess up when they screw up. When my oldest daughter started to drive I gave her my '97 Jetta that I had bought new and even though it had 120K miles on it was in pretty good shape. Over the next four years she had several "geez dad, I have no idea how that happened" episodes and unless the damage was a safety hazard I just left it the way it was or made an ugly repair. Now that she has her own first car that she is paying for, she takes really good care of it.

I would do that... But... This is unfortunately my car, the one that I commute in when the weather isn't FJR compatible

Son's car was totaled last week (not his fault), he will inherit this vehicle in a few months when I replace it.

I'm also leaving the possibility open that my wife actually did the damage earlier in the morning. All in all I think getting 4 wheels of any type, mounted balanced, for $300ish isn't too bad. I might save $100 with straight up steel wheels, but I'm OK with it.

 

[user 213]

What Silverhound said. Steel wheels are cheap used and bolt patterns are pretty common. As to what happened, I'm not seeing it bent in, which makes me think porosity and salt corrosion plus time may just be possible. Pothole might have started the crack going, and the existing rot weakened it to failure.

And fwiw, just replace the one damaged wheel. At least until winter is over. Style points don't really count here.

 

[SilverHound]

I would do that... But... This is unfortunately my car, the one that I commute in when the weather isn't FJR compatible

Ooops...sorry about that.

I'm also leaving the possibility open that my wife actually did the damage earlier in the morning.

My wife also suffers from the same memory and situational awareness disorder that my daughter seems to have. In fact I can think of no time where either of them has ever just come out and admitted either being responsible for or knowing when or how any damage to any of our vehicles has ever happened. That's why I keep my bikes locked in my man cave garage and NO ONE is allowed in there without my permission.

 

[drjfjr]

I would do that... But... This is unfortunately my car, the one that I commute in when the weather isn't FJR compatible

Ooops...sorry about that.

I'm also leaving the possibility open that my wife actually did the damage earlier in the morning.

My wife also suffers from the same memory and situational awareness disorder that my daughter seems to have. In fact I can think of no time where either of them has ever just come out and admitted either being responsible for or knowing when or how any damage to any of our vehicles has ever happened. That's why I keep my bikes locked in my man cave garage and NO ONE is allowed in there without my permission.

My son said both tires on his jeep went while going around a curve. After some discussion he found the pipe he ran over just barely off of the turn that tore the sidewalls out of his two right side tires. He put his spare on the front and drove the rest of the way home on the right wheel. 1 mile.