I have a 2000 Camry. Been struggling with a slow leak that basically flattens my front tires every week (back story: had slower leaks with older tires, bought new ones, leak is faster now, had them rebeaded twice, still leaky, last time they ground a little rust off, think that is still the problem).
I am planning to take it to the dealer but wanted to find out if I should consider another option. My stock rims are alloy and I hear that is going to be spendy. Can I get a better deal if I buy my rims some other way? The big problem is that I wouldn’t know where to start. I looked at the rims and they say 15x6JJ and there is a 45 on them as well. Any suggestions would be great.
OEM rims are expensive, but compared to the real Alloy rims used on race cars they are dirt cheap.
In real life the OEM alloy rims are more subject to leaks and road hazard damage than the old cheap steel wheels. Personally I would just by a set of steel wheels, but for most people looks are important and they don’t seem to like the nice looking wheel covers that are available.
Once you make up your mind I would agree that the next step is as mshuqua noted, try tirerack. Nice selection and price. Good information as well. They can ship to you or to a local shop who can mount them for you. No I have no connection with them other than a couple of times I have made purchases from them.
Good Luck
It depends on your willingness to fix versus replace. Sounds like the tire store is incompetent to me. If they left corrosion on the bead surface and expected it to seal, then that is the definition of insanity. Perhaps they gooped it up with bead sealer hoping it would work…
Assuming they actually did a good job of cleaning up the bead surface and replaced the valve and stem, then it might be an issue of porous metal. This can be solved by applying an epoxy “paint” to the inner surfaces of the wheel.
If you decide fixing is not worth the effort, you might consider new wheels. You may be more picky about appearance but I would go with steel wheels and covers that were the lower trim package for that car. I have an '04 Camry that I bought winter tire set fot from Tirerack. They came mounted on the steel wheels with a set of new, high quality lug nuts. The wheels were very competitively priced and I thought very reasonable in price to just buy new ones. They also carry the OEM style plastic covers for those wheels and are relatively cheap. Tirerack will also recommend a shop in your area that will swap the tires from your old rims to the new ones.
i’ve had good luck with TR in the past and recommend them to anyone else looking for rims and or tires. If you order you have the option of having them shipped to your house, or to a local tire shop that’ll install them for you.
When I ordered rims and tires together, they were balanced and ready to be put on. The shop installed them for free since everything was taken care of before shipping.
Hmmm. Our 1999 Camry 4cylinder has steel wheels. No leak problems. I think they are basically the same wheels/tires as yours – or at least, the same bolt pattern and circumference. I’m thinking that a junkyard might be up for swapping a set of mundane steel wheels with tires on them for your alloy wheels with tires on them and a not outrageous number of dollars.
thanks for all the great feedback!