Thanks to Terry for suggesting to have this TIGed.

I am the original owner of these Motegi MR7s 16x7 +42mm wheels since 2003. These rims have seen their share of potholes and abuse from my driving when I first had the Eclipse. Every rim has a blip or small bend on the lip. One in particular I have been putting up has been bleeding air through a small crack behind one of the spokes. Today I had the tire dismounted and brought the rim over to my favorite machine shop where they ground away at the damage and TIG it shut.

As I watched the machinist grind away at the paint on the outside (the side not seen with the tire mounted) we both saw that under the paint in that area was a JB Weld/epoxy of some sort. It appeared to be a casting flaw that was repaired at the factory with an epoxy and then painted over. The stress of the pothole hit years ago found that area as the weak point. What started off looking like a finger nail length crack quickly turned into a repair that required several beads to seal the whole area. He had to grind it all the way through in a small area to fill in the void.

You get what you pay for I guess. MR7s are pretty cheap but I was blown away that the American Racing/Motegi factory would take the time repair such a casting flaw. Sorry for the cell phone pictures, but it was on the fly.