Rim damage from tire install... need advice

[blazinskunk]

So I ordered 4 new Goodyear Eagle GT's (just debuted on TireRack JUly 08) and brought them to my local indy for the mounting/balancing. I picked the car up last night and didnt get a chance to inspect the work until this morning.

I wanted to puke when I saw the damage done to my wheels. Every wheel has some damage. Every lug hole has scratches from the air tool and two of the rims have some VERY deep gouges.

I called the shop immediatley and the owner appologized and told me to bring the car in on Monday and "we'll do whatever it takes to rectify the situation." What exactly that is, I do not know. I'm sure he will offer to have the wheels refurbished, but do I want to go that route? My rims are clear coated and are painted with mettalic paint (from the factory) so the chances of them not looking good-as-new are pretty high.

The only thing I would be happy with is 4 NEW OEM WHEELS! Is that asking too much? What would you guys do?

[blazinskunk]

This is the cheapest I can find the wheels. http://store.justforsaabs.com/175spdobr.html

17" 5 spoke-double bridged. $227.70/ wheel is quite a steal. StateOfNine has them for 306.95 and SaabUSA lists the MSRP @ 253.00/wheel. Does anyone have any experiance with this website? Are they a reputable vendor?

[toxicavenger]

actually there are shops that do a complete restoration on wheels to make them hold up better than the factory finish.

[woody93]

They should have used a plastic head to do the install to alleviate the damage to the wheel. Sounds like the installer didn't quite know what he was doing. I hope you're not having them do the work IF you get new wheels. Either way, I think for a shop to repair the wheels, the tires will have to come off for it to look nice. I'd say if the damage isn't too bad, they try to repair them. Try and talk them in to a nice set of new wheels... but take them somewhere else to do the removal/install.