if your wheel is bent...

[luckytopher]

can it be bent where you can't see that it's bent with the untrained eye.... ????


i think i may have bent my rim but can't see anywhere it looks bent... i have a rotational noise up front.. i've double checked the whole suspension as well as replaced the wheel bearing and the brakes/rotors both....

i took the wheel to be balanced and it is balanced fine.. but can it be balanced and still bent?

[black_box]

Put the wheel on the front axle and spin it by hand (make sure its torqued down properly so its aligned to the hub correctly). If the wheel is out of round, you'll see it on the lip of the wheel as the wheel rotates (when they're balancing the wheel is a great time to check for this). Be sure to look at both the outside lip and the inside lip. i've heard bends may be more common on the inside of the wheel due to the negative camber.

[Jim@tirerack]

If you find someone with the Hunter GSP9700 balance machine it can tell if a wheel is bent. Are they factory wheels? If not maybe someone did not put a centering ring back on.

[luckytopher]

it's not a factory wheel...

background story... was pulling out of a parking space (an end one) a few weeks back and went up over the curb when i did it.. it was enough for me to cringe and go "aw crap"....

ever since then i've had a rotational sound coming from my front passenger side (the one i went over the curb with)...

i've replaced the wheel bearing, brake pads & rotors, and inspected the suspension and nothing looks out of the ordinary there... i have had the wheel balanced at autozone and they say it is balanced... they are not factory wheels, they are the OCWheelwurx manarays...

the rotational sound i get is regardless of whether the car is in gear or not, accel/decel/etc... the speed of it goes with the speed of the car... i jsut figure that i've checked practically everything and it seems that a slight bend somewhere is the only thing left that it could be

oh and i haven't had a new alignment, but the car isn't out of alignment (or at least it seems, and is no different than before i went over the curb)

[Jim@tirerack]

I am not sure what it could be. An out of balanced wheel won't make a noise though. If you can look in the wheel well see if anything is hitting. You may have knocked the fender liner out of whack or something.

[luckytopher]

i did look and nothing is rubbing anywhere... that's the ahrd part with this.... including fender liner, the little shield around the rotor, etc...

i didnt think it would be the unbalanced wheel, but i was hoping that the autozone people would be able to tell when they balanced and say "hey its bent" or "it wont balance cuz theres something wrong w/ the wheel"...

are there places to have a wheel checked for bends/etc that i may not be able to see?

[randywalters]

if your wheel is bent...can it be bent where you can't see that it's bent with the untrained eye.... ????

i think i may have bent my rim but can't see anywhere it looks bent... i have a rotational noise up front.. i've double checked the whole suspension as well as replaced the wheel bearing and the brakes/rotors both....i took the wheel to be balanced and it is balanced fine.. but can it be balanced and still bent?Yes, a bent wheel can balance out to zero just fine, but will still have a sort of "flat spot" that you'll feel while driving. Many times people will keep getting their tires rebalanced when in fact the problem is a bent wheel, non-hubentric wheel, or an out-of-round tire.


it's not a factory wheel...background story... was pulling out of a parking space (an end one) a few weeks back and went up over the curb when i did it.. it was enough for me to cringe and go "aw crap"....

ever since then i've had a rotational sound coming from my front passenger side (the one i went over the curb with)...

i've replaced the wheel bearing, brake pads & rotors, and inspected the suspension and nothing looks out of the ordinary there... i have had the wheel balanced at autozone and they say it is balanced... they are not factory wheels, they are the OCWheelwurx manarays...

the rotational sound i get is regardless of whether the car is in gear or not, accel/decel/etc... the speed of it goes with the speed of the car... i jsut figure that i've checked practically everything and it seems that a slight bend somewhere is the only thing left that it could be

oh and i haven't had a new alignment, but the car isn't out of alignment (or at least it seems, and is no different than before i went over the curb)

It is possible for a wheel to be bent slightly and not look bent, but mounting it on the front of the car and spinning it by hand (as stated above) will quickly reveal if it's bent or not. This is how i check for bends. Usually the wheel will be bent on the inside portion because it's cantilevered out from the wheel center and doesn't have support from the spokes like the outer portion does.

And while you're spinning the wheel, look to see if the tread of the tire is bouncing too.

If the wheel is indeed straight and unbent, then you may have internally damaged the carcass of your tire when you hit the curb. Now THAT can definitely cause a rythmic road noise and you should inspect the tire at the point of impact. I presume this noisy tire is already on the front so just jack it up, spin the tire really fast, and look at the inner and outer rim edges as well as the tire tread and see if any of them bounce (a teensy bit of bounce is normal, like maybe 1/16th inch or less). Check the other (good) side and see if it acts the same as the bad side.