so a friend got in a wreck and says her rim is bent, not simply untrue. she has been advised by someone on how to bend it back into straight. i think this is a terrible idea. am i wrong? is it ok to bend rims back into place?

mr. velocity, if you're around. any comment?

well dunno bout in the case of rims, but most times when you bend metal it fatigues and weakens. imagine a paperclip, and how you can bend it back and forth till it snaps. i agree with your gut instinct, i say its a bad idea.

define bent not out of true?
If its tacoed throw it out.

i've seen mechanics do it. if there's any kind of bend you'll probably have to bend it pretty hard. like, bashing against a rock hard. seems sketchy to me as well, especially with aluminum, but people do it.

Violence is your friend.
I've bent tacoed wheels back into a roundish shape by grabbing the rim at the seven and four o'clock positions, raising it over my head and slamming it onto the ground. Using two closely spaced trees as a fulcrum also works. Of course, this was only to get me back home before I tossed the wheel.

7-10mm of bend is usually considered a sentence to a permanent out of true condition, but it's not a death sentence. Use good judgement. Personally, with all the other crap going on, I wouldn't want to have to worry about the integrity of my front wheel..

I did it on my mountain bike wheel. I was truing it, and it would only be true if one side was super-tight, and the other was totally loose. So I took it out back and whacked it against a log. Took it back in and it trued right up, quickly and easily. It is still holding up under 3 foot drops.

i bent back a rim once, probably 3 or so cms askew. it works fine but i am about to steal the hub out of the wheel.

I bent the **** out of an Open-Pro, and permanently de-bunking the myth that you cannot bend an Open-Pro.

make sure the tire is inflated and whack it against the ground where the bulge is....

then fine tune with the spoke wrench...

this works