In short. A kerb scuff that stays in the lacquer, or in the first millimetre of metal near the outer edge, is cosmetic, and refurbishing it is accepted by all three repair texts we read. A buckle is where the documents split: the wheel makers' association (EUWA) forbids straightening, Germany's 2022 guideline refuses it, British Columbia allows it with limits (heat no higher than 204 °C, shallow damage only), and a 1994 SAE study found hot straightening essentially non-damaging in its test and cold straightening harmful to the load a wheel can take. A crack is where they agree: replace the wheel. In Great Britain no statute we found bans or allows weld repair; the MOT judges the result, and it calls "any fracture or welding defect on a wheel" dangerous and a "badly distorted" wheel major. Prices are not regulated: the only independent figure we could read is an average of £67.50 for a kerbed wheel in a survey from October 2021.
Three kinds of "repair"
The word covers three different jobs, and the documents treat them differently.
| Job | What is done | Where the documents stand |
|---|---|---|
| Refurbishing | Cleaning, light sanding, filling, paint and lacquer; polishing out a scuff | Accepted by EUWA (once, by a firm that marks the wheel), Germany and British Columbia, within limits set out below |
| Straightening | Reshaping a bent rim or flange, cold or with heat | Forbidden by EUWA and Germany; allowed in British Columbia within limits; mixed results in one 1994 study |
| Welding | Closing a crack or building up lost metal | Forbidden by EUWA and Germany; allowed in British Columbia on the lips, flanges, bead seats and wheel wells only; "welding defect" is a dangerous defect at the MOT |
None of this makes a repaired wheel illegal in Great Britain. We found no statute for or against weld repair of a wheel, and the MOT manual does not mention how a wheel was mended. What the manual does is list what a tester must fail, which is the subject of the table below.
Damage by damage: what four texts say
The columns are four different kinds of text, and they do not have the same force. EUWA (the trade body of the wheel makers) writes instructions for wheels produced or sold by its members, not law. Germany's text is a federal guideline for refurbishers, published in the ministry's official bulletin (Verkehrsblatt 1/2023). British Columbia's is a provincial regulation that licenses weld repair. The MOT manual is the instruction to testers in Great Britain.
| Damage | EUWA (2020) | Germany (Dec 2022) | British Columbia (to Oct 2026) | MOT (Great Britain) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scuff in the lacquer, metal intact | Visual reconditioning once, by a firm that stamps the wheel | Allowed as refurbishment | Cosmetic repair allowed on the whole wheel | Not a listed defect |
| Gouge into the metal at the outer rim edge, up to 1 mm deep | Removing more than 1.0 mm is listed as not allowed | Allowed up to 10 per cent of the flange width and never over 1 mm, within 50 mm of the outer edge | Nicks and gouges that do not affect structure: cosmetic weld repair allowed | Not a listed defect |
| Deeper gouge, lost metal | Adding or removing material forbidden | Not allowed | Weld repair on lips, flanges, bead seats and wells only | Not a listed defect unless the wheel is badly distorted |
| Bent or out-of-round rim edge | Straightening forbidden: replace | No reshaping: replace | Cold straightening for shallow, short deformations; heat up to 204 °C for deformations up to 10 per cent of the wheel diameter in depth | Badly distorted: major. Likely to come off: dangerous |
| Crack in the rim edge or well | Welding or polymer forbidden: replace | A cracked wheel is not refurbished: replace at once | Weld repair allowed in those zones | Fracture or welding defect: dangerous |
| Crack in a spoke, the disc or a bolt hole | Replace | Replace at once | Not among the weld zones | Fracture: dangerous |
| Bolt seats marked or deformed, centre bore worn | Replace | Contact face, bolt holes and centre hole are not refurbished | Not among the weld zones | Wheel and fixings not compatible: major. Worn at the spigot: major |
| Air loss through micro-cracks or a worn bead seat | Replace (ES 1.09) | Tyre seats not refurbished or painted | The bead seat is one of the weld repair zones | Tyre not seated correctly: major |
Sources, in order: EUWA ES 1.07 sections 5 and 6 and table 1, and ES 1.09; the German guideline as reproduced by KÜS; B.C. Reg. 5/97, sections 10 to 12; the MOT inspection manual, 5.2.1 and 5.2.2. An empty or "not listed" cell means the text does not mention it, not that it allows it.
Kerbing: the cosmetic repair, in numbers
Kerb damage that stays in the surface is the one case where makers, regulators and refurbishers agree. The German guideline defines refurbishment as restoring the look of a wheel: polishing, local grinding, rounding off the edges of a notch, priming, filling with paint and lacquering. It sets conditions that are worth knowing because they are measurable:
- Measure first. Radial and lateral runout (how far the rim wobbles as the wheel turns) is measured before any work. The guideline takes 0.5 mm (0.02 in) as the highest reference value; a higher reading is only acceptable if the wheel's real manufacturing tolerance is known.
- Shallow only. The damage may reach at most 10 per cent of the rim flange width and never more than 1 mm (0.04 in), and the work is only allowed within 50 mm (2 in) of the outer edge. Further in towards the centre, only the paint layers may be redone.
- No heat, no welding, no reshaping, and no refurbishment of a wheel that is cracked or has been refurbished already.
- Leave the contact surfaces alone. The face against the hub, the bolt holes, the centre hole, the valve seat, the tyre seats, the inside of the spokes and the rim well are not refurbished or painted.
- Mark the wheel. The refurbisher marks the inside with at least a name and address, by a method that does not cut into the metal, and keeps the maker's markings intact.
- Replace the valve after painting, because of the heat and the paint (a recommendation).
EUWA's list of repairs it does not allow reads the same way: removing more than 1.0 mm of material, or leaving a rim edge thinner than 10 mm, is on it. EUWA also gives a figure for how thick the paint may be where the wheel meets the hub: no more than 50 microns in total on the mounting contact areas, unless the car maker says otherwise, and the countersinks of the bolt seats and the nut contact area should not be painted at all (ES 1.09, section 2.6). EUWA gives no reason, but the surfaces it names are the ones that carry the clamp load, which is also why the nuts and seats matter: see the wheel nut torque guide.
Diamond-cut and powder-coated wheels
Two popular finishes fall outside what these texts allow. The German guideline does not accept machining other than local grinding, because it reduces the wall thickness, and it names diamond-turned wheels. EUWA lists re-machining of the front of a spoke among repairs not allowed. For coatings, Germany caps the temperature of any paint work at 100 °C (212 °F) and says powder coatings that need more are not allowed; it also rules out blasting and thermal paint stripping.
How far above 100 °C is a powder coat cured? One coatings maker's data sheet for an architectural polyester powder on aluminium gives 15 minutes at 400 °F (204 °C) (data sheet). That is not a powder made for wheels, only an order of magnitude. Whether heat of that order matters to a wheel is a metallurgy question, and a 2024 paper on A356, a cast alloy commonly used for wheels, compared ageing at 180, 200 and 220 °C for five hours and concluded that when a powder-coat cure is scheduled relative to the T6 heat treatment affects strength and ductility (Tonetti and others, Metals 2024). That was laboratory samples, not refurbished wheels, so it shows why the question is asked and does not answer it for a given wheel.
| Temperature | What it marks | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 100 °C (212 °F) | Highest exposure allowed during painting; a lacquer cured above it is on EUWA's list of repairs not allowed | German guideline; EUWA table 1 |
| 160 °C (320 °F) | Paint stripping above this temperature is on EUWA's list of repairs not allowed | EUWA table 1 |
| 204 °C (400 °F) | Maximum heat for straightening a wheel in British Columbia | B.C. Reg. 5/97, section 12 |
| 204 °C (400 °F), 15 minutes | Cure schedule on one maker's data sheet for an architectural powder on aluminium | AkzoNobel data sheet |
| 180, 200 and 220 °C, 5 hours | Ageing temperatures compared on A356 samples | Tonetti and others, 2024 |
Buckled wheels: the real disagreement
A buckled wheel does not always look bent. The usual sign is a vibration that a balance does not cure, and the measurement is runout on a gauge. Porsche gives limits in its own tyre bulletin for the 911 (992): a maximum radial and lateral runout of 0.7 mm (0.028 in) for the wheel alone, and 1.25 mm (0.049 in) for the wheel with its tyre (bulletin 38/25, 7 October 2025). Those are limits for one car maker's wheels, not a standard; they show the size of the numbers. The German reference of 0.5 mm for a wheel about to be refurbished is a little tighter.
What to do with a wheel that is over the limit is where the sources part:
- EUWA forbids repair of a damaged rim or disc by heating, welding, plastic deformation, or adding or removing material, and says any repair changes the wheel's original specification (ES 1.07, 6.1). Its recommendation ES 1.09 adds that no guarantee on a repaired part is acceptable, because the change may introduce stresses in highly stressed areas (ES 1.09). It also says that where a severe pothole shock is suspected, the part must be replaced.
- Germany has held since 2004 that repairing a damaged light-alloy wheel should in principle be refused, counting heat treatment and reshaping as repairs.
- ISO 14400, the international standard on use, maintenance and out-of-service conditions for wheels, defines cracked, worn and bent wheels and rim components as out of service, and BSI's catalogue entry for the 2021 edition adds that welding or adding material to a rim or wheel centre with breakage, cracks or high wear should not be done, because it can add stress in critical areas (BSI entry). The full text is paid, so we have read only that entry.
- British Columbia allows cold straightening if the deformation is shallower than the thickness of the flange and under 10 cm (4 in) long at any one place, and heat straightening at no more than 204 °C if the deformation is no deeper than 10 per cent of the wheel diameter and no longer than 10 per cent (outer bead) or 20 per cent (inner bead) of the bead circumference. A facility needs straightening and welding equipment, crack-detection equipment and measuring equipment; its welders pass a test every two years; each repaired wheel is stamped with the repairer's number, the date and a severity rating from 0 (minor cosmetic) to 9 (straightening combined with welding); and a wheel judged unsafe is stamped "UNSAFE" (B.C. Reg. 5/97).
- A 1994 SAE paper from a wheel repair business and a university compared repair methods on cast-aluminium wheels by bending them to open the rim-to-flange junction, to simulate an accident. Hot straightening, and hot straightening followed by welding, were found essentially non-damaging; cosmetic welding had little effect; cold straightening reduced the maximum load to failure (SAE 940535, abstract). It is 32 years old, it concerns cast wheels of that period, and the abstract does not describe a fatigue test: we read only the abstract.
A British example is a July 2022 adjudication by The Motor Ombudsman. A franchised dealer had replaced two wheels it judged buckled beyond repair, citing the car maker's guidance and ISO 14400. The customer later had two independent specialists look at them, and they said one wheel was fine and the other had a small dent. The adjudicator did not uphold the complaint, noting that a franchised dealer must follow the maker's guidelines, which prohibit repairing wheels with buckles or cracks (case study). The case does not say who was right about those wheels. It shows that the replace-or-repair advice you get depends on who is giving it and under what rules.
Cracks: the point where they agree
On a crack, the texts line up. EUWA lists cracks in the face of the disc, in particular around the bolt holes, the upper area of the disc and the ventilation holes, and cracks in the rim caused by a puncture, as defects that require replacement. Germany says a cracked wheel is not refurbished and must be replaced at once. The one exception to the rule is British Columbia, which allows weld repair, but only on the front and rear lips, the rim flanges, the bead seats and the wheel wells; the spokes and the disc are not on the list.
In the MOT manual, "any fracture or welding defect on a wheel" is a dangerous defect (5.2.2 (a)). The word "welding defect" suggests that a sound weld is not a defect in itself, but the manual does not say how a tester judges one. The consequence of a dangerous defect is set by GOV.UK: you may drive the car away only if the current MOT is still valid and no dangerous problem was listed; otherwise it has to be repaired first, and driving it after a dangerous failure can bring a fine, a driving ban and penalty points (GOV.UK). The MOT guide on this site covers the rest of what the tester checks on wheels.
A hairline crack can be invisible to the eye. The British Columbia regulation requires every repair facility to have equipment to locate external cracks, so a suspected crack is a job for someone with that equipment.
What a repair leaves behind
A wheel that has been refurbished, straightened or welded is not finished when the paint is dry. Check four things:
- Runout, again. Ask for the reading after the work, in millimetres, and compare it with the limits above.
- Balance. A repaired wheel has a new mass distribution; have it balanced again (see the wheel balancing guide).
- Valve and sensor. The German guideline recommends a new valve after painting. If the car has tyre pressure sensors in the wheels, the sensor is part of that job.
- Torque, after fitting. Re-check the wheel nuts after 50 to 100 km (30 to 60 miles), as for any wheel refitted.
Keep the paperwork: the stamp, the reading, and what was done. EUWA's text says that when a firm outside the maker does visual reconditioning, the full liability moves from the maker to that firm or to whoever ordered the work.
What it costs
Prices are not regulated, and the pages that rank for the question usually do not publish any. The only independent figure we could read is from October 2021: a motoring site reported an average repair price of £67.50 per kerbed wheel, in a survey commissioned by a carmaker (Motoring Research). The article does not say how many quotes the average rests on, and it is five years old, so treat it as an order of magnitude and not as a quote.
What moves a price, in the documents we read: whether the job is cosmetic or structural; the size of the wheel; a diamond-cut face, which Germany and EUWA place outside refurbishment; whether the old finish is stripped and by what process; and whether the valve, the sensor and a new balance are included. Ask for these items to be named in the quote.
Questions to ask whoever is quoting
None of this recommends a repairer. These are the questions that separate the three jobs above:
- Is this a cosmetic job, a straightening, or a weld? Which of the documents in this guide would they say it falls under?
- Will any heat be used on the metal, to what temperature, and how is it measured? What temperature is the lacquer or powder cured at?
- What is the runout before and after, in millimetres?
- How is a crack found or ruled out: by eye, or with a crack-detection method?
- Will the wheel be marked, and will you get the reading and a written description of the work?
- Is the finish diamond-cut or polished, and is it machined again?
- What does the warranty on the work say, in writing?
If the wheel is a forged one
Forged wheels follow the same reasoning. A forged wheel is made of a heat-treated alloy (ours is 6061-T6), and heat is the first thing every document above restricts. For the difference between that and a cast wheel, see forged, cast and flow-formed wheels.
Our advice for a cracked wheel is to replace it, not to have it welded, heated or straightened. If it is one of ours, write to customer service before any work is done on it: the terms and conditions exclude from the warranty damage caused by an impact, and any retouching or other work by a third party that we have not authorised.
Frequently asked questions
Can a kerbed alloy wheel be repaired?
Yes, if the damage is cosmetic. Scuffs in the lacquer, and damage no deeper than 1 mm (10 per cent of the flange width at most) within 50 mm of the outer edge, can be refurbished under the German guideline, and EUWA allows visual reconditioning once. Deeper gouges, and any work that needs heat or welding, fall outside what EUWA and Germany allow.
Can a buckled alloy wheel be straightened safely?
The sources disagree. EUWA and Germany forbid it; British Columbia allows it within limits (heat up to 204 °C, shallow deformations); a 1994 SAE study found hot straightening essentially non-damaging and cold straightening harmful to the maximum load. Ask for the runout before and after, in millimetres.
Can a cracked alloy wheel be welded?
EUWA and Germany say no: replace it. British Columbia allows weld repair on the lips, flanges, bead seats and wheel wells, not on the spokes or the disc. In Great Britain, the MOT lists any fracture or welding defect on a wheel as dangerous.
Will a repaired alloy wheel pass the MOT?
The MOT manual does not ask how a wheel was mended. It fails a wheel with any fracture or welding defect (dangerous), a badly distorted wheel (major), and a wheel and fixings that are not compatible (major). Kerb scuffs are not a listed defect.
How do I know if a wheel is buckled?
A vibration that persists after balancing is the usual sign, and the proof is a runout reading on a gauge. One car maker's limit for its own wheels is 0.7 mm radial and lateral for the bare wheel; the German reference for a wheel to be refurbished is 0.5 mm. A buckle is not always visible.
Is it safe to drive on a cracked or buckled wheel?
No source we read says it is. EUWA says a wheel with a fracture or deformation must be replaced and scrapped, and the MOT classes a fracture as dangerous. After a failure with a dangerous problem listed, GOV.UK says the car has to be repaired before it is driven.
How much does alloy wheel repair cost?
There is no regulated price. The only independent figure we could read is an average of £67.50 per kerbed wheel from a survey reported in October 2021. The price depends on the damage, the size, the finish and what is included, so ask for the work to be itemised.
Can a diamond-cut or powder-coated wheel be refurbished?
Germany does not accept machining other than local grinding, and caps paint work at 100 °C and rules out powder coats that need more. EUWA lists re-machining a spoke face and a lacquer cured above 100 °C as repairs it does not allow. We found no rule on this in Great Britain; the question to put to a refurbisher is what temperature the process reaches.
Where to go next
For the checks that follow any repair, read wheel balancing and wheel nut torque. If the wheels on a car are steel, or you are choosing between steel and alloy partly because of kerb damage, read alloy versus steel wheels; for what a lighter wheel changes, lightweight wheels and unsprung weight. Onyx Forged is a French brand of made-to-order forged wheels, designed to JWL/VIA standards: see Onyx Forged and the catalogue.
Sources
- EUWA, ES 1.07, Safety and Service Instructions for the use of Wheels in Tyre Workshops (June 2020): sections 5 and 6, table 1.
- EUWA, ES 1.09, Safety and Service Recommendations for Wheels: sections 2.3 and 2.6.
- KÜS, technical note no. 2303001 (20 January 2023), reproducing the German federal transport ministry's guideline of 5 December 2022 on refurbishing light-alloy wheels for cars, in German.
- Province of British Columbia, Weld Repair of Aluminum Alloy Wheels Regulation, B.C. Reg. 5/97, consolidation current to 6 October 2026.
- GOV.UK, MOT inspection manual, sections 5.2.1 and 5.2.2; GOV.UK, MOT test result.
- SAE International, paper 940535, Integrity Assessment of Repaired Cast-Aluminum Automotive Wheels (1 March 1994), abstract.
- The Motor Ombudsman, case study: buckled alloy wheel replacement (26 July 2022).
- ISO 14400:2021 public preview, wheels and rims: use, general maintenance and safety requirements and out-of-service conditions.
- Porsche AfterSales, bulletin 911 (992) 38/25 (7 October 2025): runout limits.
- AkzoNobel Powder Coatings, data sheet Interpon D2000 YX313QF: cure schedule.
- Tonetti, Osório, Bortolozo and Padilha, Metals 2024, 14(4): heat treatments of A356 alloy wheels, abstract.
- Motoring Research, cost of repairing the UK's kerbed alloy wheels (16 October 2021).
All pages were read on 15 October 2026; the German text and the SAE abstract are cited as read, and the ISO standard only through its public preview.
The Onyx Forged design office.