I missed the wheel repair topics a month ago. The problem with cracks is that they require deep welds that end up making brittle spots in the rim. You weld one spot where a crack has been, and the weld is strong, but since the welded metal is so hard, you end up with cracks next to the weld next time you hit a bump. It would require top notch skills to make a good deep weld without causing this type of problem.
As for curbed lip repair, this is a cosmetic weld that can be done without heating the entire area of the wheel and build it up little by little instead of doing a deep hot weld.
That’s how I understand wheel welding can be done to add metal to curved lips, but cracks often result in garbage. I normally just sell the cracked wheels or wheel barrels or lips as cracked rather than paying $35/crack to get them welded. It would have to be something really rare to justify the welding IMO.
Lip repair is $90/wheel for me at my discounted prices for bringing so much business to my wheel shop.
Full wheel refurbishing is $135-170/wheel for me at my discounted prices, but when I’ve brought in 12 wheels at a time I have been able to get it done for $100/wheel. I pretty exclusively work with 16” wheels. Smaller ones can be cheaper and bigger ones can be more expensive. Sometimes it just depends on the condition, how bent they are, etc.
Sometimes wheel refurbishing includes the risk of determining that the wheel has a critical flaw and no wheel repair shop will touch it after they stripped tons of paint or even metal off and then return you a piece of scrap metal and say “sorry, but this one is junk.” That’s happened to me when I brought a set in for what I thought was a cosmetic refurb, resulting in me holding a “set” of 3 really rare wheels until I ultimately just sold it as singles. Lost a bunch on that one. Win some. Lose some.
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