Fleainat

Hey everyone,

I just noticed the other day that my right front rim is bent...
There are no scratches, and I have never hit a curb, so did a pothole cause this?
Since I only have 4,500 miles, would you expect the warranty to cover this repair? Also, I'm most concerned because I have the chrome plating, so I'm hoping a repair won't cause it to have to be re-chromed.

Also, I've noticed a slight vibration in the steering wheel when I'm driving, but I'm not sure if this was always there. Do you think they will re-align my wheels under warranty too?

Thanks for the advice...

andone

Re-align your wheels maybe but warranty for the rims i don't think it covers that. You can read up on this thread for more info.


https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=270713

br3akenout

iTrader: (1)

well i recently hit a bad pothole myself and while it wasn't a major noticeable vibration my car felt "different". So i had it checked and i found out that the inner part of my drivers side front rim was bent! They said that it wasn't bent enough to interfere with normal driving.

My cars rim and tires are covered by their warranty so any incidence is covered....to a degree. Since the rim wasn't bent too severely they just rebalanced and realigned the car. Basically, their decision of whether or not to fix the rim depends on how bad it's bent.

I've had several tire bubble incidents and they've replaced it every single time - it didn't matter how big the bubble was.

I had the rim fixed through my uncle since he owns an auto shop so i didn't get charged that much. Depending on where they send the rim it could possibly cost you anywhere from 150-250 dollars. I had mine done for 150 and they were even refinished cause it had quite a bit of curb rash (whoops). Btw if you're thinking of buying a new oem rim from a dealership they're charging an arm and a leg - i was quoted at 700 for ONE rim, for that price you can get almost a whole new set off ebay.

SO depending on how bad/severe the damage is (and whether or not you have tire and rim insurance) and possibly how amazing your dealership is will determine the service departments course of action.

hope that helps...

neova

Bent rims are not covered by warranty as it is considered wear and tear unless you bought one of those dealer add-ons warranty. They vary from dealer to dealer depending on which company they partner with, and are not part of Lexus anyways.

Vibrations from the steering wheel can be caused by many factors, including poor alignment, unbalanced wheels, and bent rims. Since you already know you have a bent rim, that's probably the cause.

If Lexus found a bent rim on your car, they will likely attribute your alignment problems to you having hit a pot hole. So the alignment might not be covered either.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

Unfortunately, unless if it was addressed prior to driving the car off the lot when you purchased it, it's not covered by warranty.

Lexus dealerships do a very thorough inspection of the car prior to handing you the keys. They've been able to pinpoint paint defects the size of a drop of water on the car whenever my family purchased a Lexus (we have four Lexus), which did happen on our ES350 (there was a small pinpoint sized area that was missing paint on the edge of the rear passenger door; needless to say, they found it and fixed it prior to handing over the keys).

If they did not see (or ignored) the bent rim by then, then you wouldn't be able to claim it under warranty now. Sorry...

IS_Mine

Not always true. I had a bent rim and my dealership took care of it; even gave me a new tire.

They looked at it and couldn't understand how a rim got bent without any visible damage to the tire or the rim itself. So they replaced it! So it seems to me it is hit and miss with dealerships. It can't hurt to ask and they might surprise you! Lexus tries to go out of their way to make their customer happy. If you have a good serivce manager.. he'll understand that.

PS -- I had the same vibration.

StarfireIS

My wife is off on Spring Break this week and we bought the car in October of last year so it was time for the 5000 miles service. She was travelling the 2 mile trip to the dealer on Monday morning and managed to hit what we call in Texas a "city titty". They use them around here instead of paint to delinate the lanes and they use bigger ones sometimes to designate left turn lanes. She hit a big one for a left turn lane that was probably 4 or 5 inches tall and 6 inch wide at the base. All of this happened on the way to the dealership no less. She confessed to hitting it at a speed of around 50MPH. Fortunately, we bought a wheel protection warranty when we bought the car. They were going to try and fix the rim, but were unable to so we got a new wheel. The bad part is that the wheel warranty only covers the cost of a wheel up to $500 and the new replacement wheel cost $650, so after paying the difference and getting an alignment done we were still out about $350.

After this episode, I reminded my wife that she is not driving her old Honda Accord around town here and that the IS350 is really a sports car. Everything is designed for performance, including the low profile wheels and tires, so she needs to pay more attention. We got the car back yesterday and I think she has seen the light after this episode. She didn't like being without her car for too long.

And yes we are still married

If memory serves, we paid $500 for the wheel warranty so right now we've made back the money we paid up front, though I would have preferred not to have had this happen...