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      09-04-2010, 05:41 PM   #8
Alext
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Drives: B M W
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Everest

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I remember you mentioned you hit some potholes on your roadtrip. Now it depends how big these potholes were and whether the damage was additive and progressive.

If the wheel impacted on the lip of one huge crater of a pothole then that naturally would have caused the damage immediately and shortly after pressure loss. There would also be some sort of bend and deviation in total roundness. But I am not sure how localised it would be, if you know what I mean. I have a 17inch cracked rim at home (went over curb) that I will take a look at and see how 'bent' it was in that area.

What's interesting would be the result of hitting the wheel multiple times on minor potholes. Has anyone done any testing of a BMW 19inch wheel with RFT like this to determine if such repeated stress will crack it at a single point??

The fact is that you only had the one, single crack in the rim which COULD indicate a weak spot in the manufacture of the rim. So it could be that you hit that single spot multiple times on a surface that was rough enough to cause stress (highly unlikely?) but not actually have enough penetrative force to damage (bend) the rim in one hit.

I am betting that the crack just appeared over time due to a stressor causing trauma in that particular area which set off a gradual weakening process in the material eventually leading to a crack.

Hope this makes sense haha.
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