WARNING: Welding, brazing, or otherwise heating any area of an Alcoa® aluminium wheel will weaken the wheel. Weakened or damaged wheels can lead to an explosive separation of tires and wheels or wheel failure on the vehicle. Explosive separations of tyres and wheels or wheel failure on the vehicle could cause serious injuries or death. Never attempt to weld, braze, or heat any surface of an Alcoa® aluminium wheel.
Did you know that even something as seemingly harmless as chroming your Alcoa® Wheels instantly voids the 5 year warranty?
Alterations to a wheel may change stress points, strength, and corrosion properties in such a way that the wheel no longer meets design criteria, resulting in non-compliance with safety standards and vehicle certification requirements.
All Alcoa® Wheels come with a 5 year Warranty and are designed, manufactured, and rigorously evaluated in a tightly controlled environment to ensure they pass performance criteria only for approved applications, so it’s important to only use them for the applications they’re designed for and not to alter them in any way.
THE 6 THINGS THAT WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY
Howmet Wheels Systems Australia (distributor of Alcoa® Wheels) will not be able to consider a wheel valid for reparation under the warranty if a customer brings a wheel in with any of the below alterations:
- Machining (of any type)
- Redesigning the hand holes
- Reconfiguring the bolt holes in any way
- Welding on any part of the wheel
- Painting the wheel
- Chrome plating the wheel
In fact, the warranty conditions state, “Howmet is not liable for, does not warrant, and will not repair or replace or make adjustment, with respect to any Wheel or surface or rim flange treatment on such Wheel that has been subjected to misuse, abuse, or improper modification.”
Under Australian law, while Alcoa Wheels owners are offered extra protection from guarantees that fall under the Australian Consumer Law, these consumer guarantees do not apply if the customer has misused a product in any way that caused the problem they are seeking to be remedied.
THE TROUBLE ALTERATIONS CAUSE WITH WARRANTY
Where wheels have been altered, Howmet Wheel Systems may not be able to certify the accuracy or validity of the certification markings that are stamped on the wheel at the time of manufacture.
Alterations can also lead to cracks, bending, shrinkage, breakage, out of roundness, balancing issues, and other problems that can lead to catastrophic wheel failure, wheel separation, tyre failure and/or tyre separation, all which can cause serious injury or death.
Wheel showing welding alteration on the mounting surface and thereby voiding the 5 year warranty.
WARRANTY BEST PRACTICE
Always refer to the Alcoa® Wheel Service Manual when maintaining your Alcoa Wheels. Section 3-2 in our wheel service manual addresses wheel alteration in more detail.
Listen to wheels experts sharing warranty stories over at the Behind the Wheels Podcast:
This content requires certain cookies to function. Please accept cookies in order to continue. You may need to refresh your browser window afterwards.
Make Sure It’s An Alcoa® Wheel When You Buy Your Next Truck or Trailer
To spec your wheels for your equipment, ring 
1800 955 191 to talk with our wheel experts, or fill out a contact form and we will reach out to you to answer your questions and discuss your specifications.
