You're correct, wheels are never repaired, for a number of reasons. First, it's impossible to know how much pressure to put on it to bend it back in a slowly-controlled manner. Second, any damage that includes bending creates a weak spot that might not crack and fail in the future, but no professional is going to risk their reputation on such a service. That would also be a huge liability risk to the shop owner. Finally, the time involved in trying to straighten a wheel would cost a real lot more than the cost of a used wheel. A wheel with a wobble as little as .045" is too small to see by eye, but it can cause a vibration, and / or a shimmy in the steering wheel. It takes a pretty good hit to bend a wheel. If it was easy to bend them back, it would be just as easy to bend them from hitting normal bumps and pot holes.
The proper approach is to buy a used wheel from a salvage yard. They have all kinds of books with pictures of wheels, and they can look at what you have, to match up the replacement.
If you look in the yard at any salvage yard, you're likely to find a really huge pile of cast wheels headed for recycling. Those wheels were damaged on crashed vehicles or they are heavily-corroded. They won't sell you any of those for the same reasons I mentioned above.
Here's links to some related articles you might find of interest:
https://www.2carpros.com/articles/wheel-removal-and-re-installation
https://youtu.be/_HIaE1MyDiw
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Sunday, September 5th, 2021 AT 3:42 PM
