Cracked rim - need changing?

[HughG]

Somehow I've managed to crack the rim of the Shimano R501 on the back of my town hack, its about 500miles old, bought new but from eBay so suspect there's no recourse there. It seems to ride fine, I can't feel it through the brakes and there are no nasty noises. What does the PH collective reckon, safe to continue using or dead and be thankful a £40 wheel has died and not a £400 one?

[WinstonWolf]

It's going to fail, the only question is when

[CoolC]

That's an interesting crack, as there seems to be a mark on the tyre at the same angle.

[TwistingMyMelon]

Blimey can't believe you are asking!

I reckon that will go and will be nasty, hard on the brakes @ 40 mph, heat cracks rim...ouch

Then again it could last ages, but I doubt it not worth the risk, its not like you can bring the bike to a graceful stop with one wheel!

My mudguard bolt came loose on club ride, couldn't tighten it, thought "yeah will be fine until I get home" seemed ok, then came off jammed in wheel @ 25 mph and disfigured my teeth and face!!! Never worth the risk for me now....

[HughG]

Since taking the picture I have tried polishing it out to see if its a scratch, but it's definitely a crack. I'll save the hub and a few spokes and bin the rim.

[HughG]

Fair enough, never had a rim cracked like this before (had a spoke pull out once and the other 15 quickly followed so that got binned).
I'll save the hub and a few spokes given the mileage.

[was8v]

Get a new rim of similar depth and swap it over, I find building wheels quite relaxing.....


However, getting another wheel of similar quality probably won't cost much more. It needs changing asap.

[HughG]

We're between houses at the moment, I'll chuck a spare wheel on it for the time being and rebuild it when my truing stand is out of storage.

[upsidedownmark]

That really does look like a scratch - albeit a deep one. Rims are alloy and don't really crack like that (in a dead straight line then stop for no reason) they either creep from stress risers like spoke holes, or go crystaline and fracture properly.

Either way, those wheels are very much cheap and cheerful, I'd bin it and get another equally cheap and cheerful one.