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Wheel replacement question

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by geognerd, Aug 2, 2024 at 12:09 AM.

  1. geognerd

    geognerd Junior Member

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    I have a 2007 Prius base with 15" wheels and the original tire size. I've had a tire with a slow leak for a few weeks and took it to the national tire chain where I bought my tires to have it checked. They found nothing wrong with the tire itself, but there was a lot of crud and stuff on the edge of the rim that they said was keeping the bead from making good contact with the wheel.

    They said I could get the wheel refinished elsewhere, which they said wasn't cost-effective, or I could buy new wheels from them. They were suggesting getting all 4 wheels replaced. I had them put the tire back on and said I wanted to consider my options. The quote they gave me for 4 basic steel wheels installed was $585. I plan on checking with a local tire shop to see what their options and recommendations are. After a lot of expensive repairs and maintenance this year, I'm not thrilled about this expense.

    I've never needed to buy wheels before. Can I just replace the one bad wheel, or will it mess up the ride and handling since it's different from the 3 OEM wheels? Or is this something where I need to get either 2 or 4 wheels to maintain ride and handling? I appreciate any advice and expertise you have.
     
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    All you need to do is go to an independent tire shop not this national tire business and all that stuff they give you all that safety crap and they can't do and they can't they can't they can't so go to a small place you know usually the Spanish guys run it they even have a tire balancing machine and all that you'd be surprised what you do is is you take a brown Scotch-Brite pad with you when you go to have your tires mounted and when the guy who mounts your tires goes to mount your tires show him the crud by pointing at it and show him the Scotch-Brite pad he'll check the wheel in the tire bouncing machine to make it spin and run the Scotch-Brite pad over the bead and seat this is the cruddy area that they're talking about It look shiny silver on the alloy wheels after one pass he'll do that to each one of the wheels that's supposedly has all this crud and that'll clean the crud down to silver aluminum instantaneously so there's no buying complete wheels so on and so forth especially if you have the aluminum alloy rims they just need to be cleaned as above and you're good to go another 300k Don't fall for it.
     
  3. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    If what Tom suggested doesn't pan out, I'd try and get one OEM wheel (that matches the other three) from a wrecker's/dismantler's yard. Shouldn't cost too much.
     
  4. xliderider

    xliderider Senior Member

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    They should also have some bead sealing goop available if the rim is truly in rough condition, even after giving it a bit of scouring with a Scotchbrite pad.

    SM-G781V ?
     
  5. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    I just look at what the tag says and where you live If you live where the tag says in your profile Man that's California I thought It doesn't rain in California weather is beautiful all the time in California so what are you doing driving through creeks to have this kind of stuff on your bead seats That's pretty good I guess or they've never been touched before and you've run tires down to the metal cords the whole life of the car which doesn't really pan out either usually spinning it with the brown Scott's bright pad that's the heavy cutting one not the green one or the blue one the brown one usually cleans all that right up quick fast in a hurry If you go to a real private tire store national chains have big long mission statements about safety and their concern for you and blah blah blah read it when you go in the door then when you go to the smaller place you won't see any of this gobbledygook nonsense on the wall what you will hear is you need not be in the shop because they don't want to be responsible for your laxidasical possible attitude in the shop and get hurt and then they're on the hook for it. The higher you get up in the franchise chain of commands and nonsense the longer the mission statements become and so on and so forth so there's always that Go to a real place that does real work in a real town like where you live. Somebody that hasn't paid somebody a fee to open a store and usually you'll wind up with more realistic things happening.
     
  6. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    The OP location is IL.
     
  7. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Perfect that's the state where you might need to be cleaning your wheels every so often internally the bead seat and what have you because lots of nastiness on the roads there if I'm not mistaken