Ok so I have two bent rims on my car that are the factory and I just fail to see how factory rims are going to bend just by hitting tiny pot holes especially two of them both on the passenger side. I was thinking about calling Nissan and complaining because for factory rims to bend is just crazy there rims strength sucks. Anyone else having this problem with there rims?

Ik some people here are complaining about vibration at 50 mph; I would suggest checking to see if your rims are bend somewhere as well.

 

My 7 gen 19's have hit a lot of big pot holes and held up great, you must have just hit at a real hard impact / angle unfortunatly.

 

yea same here as well i hit some potholes hard and so far so good

 

It's not there rim strength that sucks, they're 19's for christ sakes! I had good quality 19's on my '95 and I ripped them off after 2-weeks because they are just obnoxious, ride like absolute garbage. It was a miracle that I never bent them, but the previous owner did. Big rims look cool, but that's about it.

 

Well the thing is that I haven't hit any pot holes hard at all. I actually paid to have one of my rims unbent and then two days later hit a pot hole and felt the vibration again. Nissan did a ****ty job with these rims IMO and if I could have put the 18" on as option when I bought the car I would have but Nissan did not offer that at all.

 

Your not suppose to fix aluminum rims, you can find places that do fix them, but I was told for years and learned that once aluminum bends, it will bend again, it loses it's strength.

I love the attitude, one little thing goes wrong and suddenly Nissan is ****ty, I have hit some pretty bad potholes and every time, I blame myself, never have I cursed Nissan.

 

Well, I got the 19" rims, not the 19' ones, and have nailed a couple of good size potholes with them and they've held up great - so far. I sure don't think you can say they bend "easily".

 

I have owned nothing but Maximas for over 25 years, and never had a problem with a rim. Could some jerk on a test drive have driven over a curb with your car before you even bought it? The fact both right rims have the same problem makes me think something like that might have happened.

 

I have to disagree with you there. Wheel strength is not directly tied to size. It is all in the quality of the wheel. I ran two different sets of 20" wheels on my 6th gen. One set was definitely a cheaper quality wheel and it showed when I hit a pothole. I hit potholes with the second set of much better quality and never had an issue.

It is not beyond reason to believe that a bad batch of wheels could have come out of the cast. As automated as manufacturing is these days, it is still possible to get a poor quality part every now and then.

 

you had 19s on a vehicle that came from the factory with 15 inch or 16 inch rims.
7th gen maximas come from the factory with 18 or 19 inch rims.

see the difference?

oem maxima whels are not forged

 

+1....I took the 18" wheels off for 20"s and I don't even feel a difference in ride.

 

OEM nissan wheels unless they are the Rays are complete garbage when it comes to strength, i have some Z wheels that are cracked on the SPOKE. How the **** did the crack on the spoke?

 

It could have just been a Monday morning rim. Guys at the factory drink too so I'm sure they don't put out 100% good quality. Just maybe those 2 bad rims sliped through the guys that had a hang over Monday morning haha j/k

 

yeah.. 19's definately do bend easily... i even i have 18's and they have bent before.
thats sad to see factory ones bending easy though..factory ones no matter what size should be built like tanks.

 

^^^ Must have been some cheap name wheels. I have ran 18 and 19 inch wheels which were forged with a 35 series sidewall and never had issues with bending. This goes to show that when buying aftermarket wheels, spend more to get forged or semi forged wheels.

But I will admit that PA roads suck...

 

I had 19'' rims on my car, motegi rims. Okay wheels, never bent them and I hit some decent size pot holes. This was also with a 35 tread wall. Im surprised that a stock rim would bend like that

 

but we are talking about OEM wheels.

 

^^^ I was just replying to his post.

We have established that oem wheels can bend and are not super strong.
However a suspension set-up has alot to do with it also.

 

I guess I'm not sure we've established that. We have a couple of very isolated incidents. Many of us have had multiple Maximas, hit thousands of potholes - and never bent a rim. My last two Maximas have had 45 series tires, OE and after market rims, hundreds of thousands of miles, and no bent rims.

 

The 18's on my 06 took a few unexpected hits, in fact once I thought I was gonna shatter the rim, but nothing happened.

My 09, 19's my brother drove over a curb at 30mph, nothing happened

 

So after all of the reading from the replies people have posted (I appreciate each and every response) do you all think that if I give Nissan a call that there might be something that they would be able to do with this issue? Perhaps issues me new rims and bring the old ones to the dealership to have them shipped back to them, or same thing but pay a small fee just to get a new set of rims possibly the 18" instead of the 19" since I haven't had much luck with them?

 

To be honest, i think you should upgrade to some nice aftermaket rims, you could go to the dealer but i feel you would be more frustrated than anything else. Its gonna be an ordeal dealers never make anything easy.

I have 19" M45 sport rims 245/40/19 and these houston roads are a mess and knock on wood i have not bent any rim. My fellow houstonians can attest to these roads its just like NY roads if not worse. good luck

 

Well, you could try, but I can't see Nissan taking responsibility for it because:

1) you can bend any rim if you hit something big enough while going fast enough and

2) you have no way of proving you didn't hit something that way.

 

I have to disagree. Back in 93 I had a NX2000 and one of the rims and tire got damaged and I had a rep look at the damage and he felt that it was a defect and Nissan payed to replace it. The rims did suck on that car and eventually I replaced them with aftermarket rims and tires.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Like I said - he can try. But with two damaged rims on the same side and no evidence of a problem with OEM rims overall, I'd guess Nissan would tell him that road hazard damage isn't covered. Of course, I could be wrong.

 

can't wait to put the 20s on

 

Have the oem 19's on my max an so far so god. An I constantly drive around imo the worst streetsin the world NYC. An also hit some potholes were I thought for sure my whole wheel would be rolling down the street.

 

Really!....nothing happened?, because I think I might have hurt him.

 

It has been established that OEM wheels are not built to the same specs as some aftermarket wheels. Some aftermarket wheels are worse then oem quality and some are way better then oem wheels. In the end, an aftermarket wheel that is forged in some way is way strogner then an oem unit.
In the end, oem wheels bend and when they do people replace them with aftermarket units because the price for an individual rim especially from the dealer is way to expensive.

 

If we've established anything, it's that most of the people that posted in this thread have hit some good sized road hazards and haven't had any problem with their rims.

The fact that the vast majority of Maximas (and Nissans and just cars in general) wear OEM rims for the life of the vehicle shows what a ridiculous statement this is. Most people drive on OEM rims and never have a problem.

 

Been reading this thread and did not know I would post on it. Here I am at last to post because of what happened to my Max. I aam still to find out if my rim is bent or not. Now, I don't see any physical damage. A tire/rim specialist will tell me for sure.

I swapped cars with my wifey today. About 7pm this night, she was on her way home. Doing 40, did not see this hole and hit the front passenger tire hard! Well, rim edge cut the tire at the sidewall and tire started leaking air. A mile from home, she drove car like that loosing air and made it to the house, where tire completely went flat. I don't know if rim was bent.

Now, I know discount tire will not accept to fix a cut or say slash on the sidewall, so I have prepared myself to pay for a new tire. When I got home, I changed the tire and put the spare. I have the 2010 Maxima 19" on my car and spare is 18" OEM.

So, now, my cay has 1 245/45/18 2008 OEM (my original wheel) on the front passenger side and 3 245/40/19 2010 19" (wheels I bought). I will have this setup until saturday morning when I will be off. I work tomorrow and Friday, so, cannot get to discount tire.

So, what do you guys think?

 

Petit - those two combos actually have very similar total outside diameters, so you should be fine in the near term. Just don't try to run a road course or race anyone, as the performance characteristics of these two combos are quite different.

 

I agree with light. One tire model I checked had 26.7" as the OD for both those tire sizes, so you should be good to go until Sat.

 

My 04 had another strut problem soon after hitting a massive pothole on the shthole that is Staten Island. I had four big guys in the car and I was doing maybe 20.

Dealer said rim is bent won't touch the strut until rim is swapped. I have the ftsb in the 04 and I really suspect, as another poster said, suspension setup has a lot to do with it. I bet the tower brace makes hitting something worse as there is even less flex.

Lets hope the 19s on the 2010 are better. If not, I would get four new rims of some other type. Don't my taxes go to fix roads? It is so hard to keep a car nice.

 

The squandering of money these last few decades by our government, poor choices by financial institutions, and ostentatious living by folks who should have known better, eventually led to a collapse in our economy which will take years to crawl out of. Very minimal road repairs are being done in many states at this time because the money is simply not there. For instance, we are still waiting on a fairly sizable (around $3,000) refund on our taxes from a nearby state from '08, but the state involved (not GA, where I live), had to lay off many workers, is way behind in processing returns, and doesn't have the money to pay at this time anyway.

We are going to have to be our own guardians against potholes until the economy regains footing. I avoid driving at night (can't see the holes), and do not follow another vehicle closely (which results in potholes suddenly appearing too late to dodge). It is truly sickening to slam into a deep pothole at almost any speed.

 

OMG... so i thought buying a new car would mean less problems. one early morning as im walking to my car i see this chunk of my wheel missing... i immediately take it to a deal and they want to charge me $850! i wanted to cry... what do i do? the guy said it was caused by a very extreme hit... i only drive to and from work and there are a few bumps i hit downtown but nothing to apply the type of force to remove that piece of the wheel... any advice?

 

Taragon, are u sure no one hit the car on the wheel and you did not know, that just sounds weird. I am pretty sure you can feel a chunk of wheel missing, while driving but could be wrong

post some pics

 

my steering wheel was shaking but i thought it was perhaps i needed an alignment... but then on a sunny morning walking to my car i noticed it missing! i did post a pic... im wondering if it finally shows on my post...if someone hit me though they missed the rest of the car... i feel like the wheel monster came and took a big bite from my wheel!

 

 

Mine have held up so far (knock on wood) through brooklyn streets and the infamous belt parkway, and i've hit a few big ones.

Interesting...lol.