May have busted my front rim, have some questions - updated

[RambleOn]

Well, the other night I worked a 24 hour shift and got only one hour of broken sleep. On the 5 mile drive home I was tired as hell, but was doing fine until I got into my own neighborhood. I drifted off the road and somehow grazed a fire hydrant and managed to knock off both my front and rear wheel covers, passenger side. The strange part is that the body suffered no damage, just a little nick in the back near the gas cap. Anyhow, I stopped and grabbed my wheel covers. The back one was okay with just a little chip missing, so I popped it back on, no problem. The front one was cracked beyond repair so I threw it out when I got home.

The following morning I noticed the front tire was noticeably low on air. All the tires are all fairly new, I only put about 10k miles on them so far. I also noticed the ridge of the rim is warped, probably where it grazed the hydrant. I refilled the tire last night, drove about 50 miles, no noticeable air loss so far. Do you guys think I should replace the rim? I'm not sure if a new wheel cover will even fit on there since the edge of the rim is bent. The car feels fine while driving, no shaking, pulling, vibrating etc. If I can't get a new wheel cover to fit on, I'll definitely replace the rim, but otherwise I'm not sure. By the way, the back tire is fine.

I guess my question is, do you think the impact with the hydrant caused the tire to lose about 1/4-1/2 it's air? It was inflated enough to drive to the gas station the next morning. The car is a 94 Chevy Corsica so I don't care too much about it, but I want to get a new wheel cover on there asap so it doesn't look trashy.

 

[Pepsi90919]

yes get a new rim. my bet is if you take it up to 100-120 km/h (like 75 mph) you'll start feeling something.

 

[RambleOn]

Actually, I already tried that. On the highway this morning going to work, I opened up that screaming 3.1 V6 and took it up to 95mph, only for a minute (no other cars were around, it was 6am), and it was fine. I'm just worried about that tire going losing air. I might just head to the junkyard and get a new rim to be safe.

 

[Kadarin]

An impact will not cause one-time air loss. More likely, what happened was the lip of the rim peeled back enough to create a slow leak. I can't judge for sure because I haven't seen your rim, but if it's a steel rim (you mention wheel covers) and all that's wrong with it is a bent lip, it might be possible to easily repair the rim without replacement. Most tire shops could probably do this (Wheel Works, in the SF Bay Area could). If you have to replace the rim, you can usually get a used rim from an outfit like Acker Wheel (again, in San Jose, CA) or from 1-800-USEDRIM for about $50. (These companies also do aluminum wheels, if anyone needs any..)

 

[LordUnum]

They don't have any cheap wheel shops near you where you can pick up a used steel rim (depending on its size) for $5... $10... $15 at most? Plenty near me.

For this price, I'd just go ahead and replace the wheel to play it safe.

 

[RambleOn]

Yeah this is just a normal Chevy Corsica, no fancy wheels or anything, just stock wheel covers. I'm mostly concerned about the tire itself being damaged. I might take it to my mechanic tomorrow and see what he thinks. I'd hate to have to replace the tire and the rim.

 

[notfred]

It's probably fine. I'd jsut pay close attention to it for the next couple days, and if seems fine, it probably is.

The tire might have been low before you hit the curb and you just didn't notice it until you went to inspect the damage.

 

[RambleOn]

Originally posted by: notfred
It's probably fine. I'd jsut pay close attention to it for the next couple days, and if seems fine, it probably is.

The tire might have been low before you hit the curb and you just didn't notice it until you went to inspect the damage.

Sadly no, coincidentally I had my tires rotated the day before at the tire shop because I had hit the 10k mark, all was fine, plus I usually keep an eye on them, I'm a car hypochrondriac, every little rattle concerns me. I mean the tire was literally almost half flat the next morning. When I drove it, it felt okay, no thumping, but the steering felt a little funny till I reinflated the tire to the correct psi. The tire definitely lost air during the incident. I'm just gonna keep an eye on it, and maybe let my mechanic have a look, and possibly get an alignment since it's about that time anyway. (Haven't had one in 25k miles). Now it's time to find a new wheel cover too.

 

[RambleOn]

Update - I took a drive tonight with the windows down. I noticed when I drive straight it's fine, but if the road curves to the right, or I make a right turn it makes a faint thunking noise, hard to explain the noise, but it's not the "CV Joint is on it's way out" noise. It was the right tire that hit the hydrant so I wonder what I messed up in there. Damn!

 

[Ultima]

Well, at least you didn't kill anyone. Did you have the windows open and the radio on, etc.?
If you smoke you could always burn yourself with your cigarette