Question about wheels...

If a wheel has loose spokes or is maybe built improperly somehow, can riding on it cause it to become untrue?

I just bought a 27" wheel for my bike for $50 yesterday and rode about 15 miles on it today. It was fine when I got it and for the duration of my ride, but as I pulled into my driveway a black cat ran ran right in front of me and I had to stop very suddenly. The bike didn't fall over or anything and I'm not sure exactly what happened, but right after this the wheel was noticeably warped and will barely turn because it rubs on the brakepads at the most untrue points. Would I be in the right taking it back to the shop and complaining or must it be my fault somehow? I mean, it must be somehow related to my little accident but... all that happened was I swerved sharply while hitting the brakes at full force. When I tried to bike the rest of the way up my drive after this the friction was too great and I got off and observed the untrueness, and noted that at the most untrue part the spokes were ridiculously loose.

Any thoughts are appreciated.. There's no way I can afford to drop another $50 for a used wheel, and I feel that something this minor should not have hurt my wheel so badly.

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Since I bought the wheel secondhand from a bike shop which I would describe as "seedy" and having read all the threads on here about warped rims, I suspect this was a bent rim that was tensioned back into shape and resold, and somehow the stress of the hard stop cause it to return to crappiness.

Does this make sense to anybody?

You said a black cat

Hard to speculate here, but what is clear is that the wheel should not have tacoed from simple normal use, which is all that your "little accident" constitutes. Take the wheel back to the store, and have them fix it.

By the way, what's your weight? If you're above 200 pounds or so, then that may be an issue if you had a lightweight wheel.

I weigh 175, so I don't know how much that is a factor.
I took the wheel back today and asked the guy if he could fix it and he seemed very reluctant to, but said he would try for $8.
If I go back tomorrow and he wasn't able to I'm gonna be pretty upset, because he didn't seem willing to offer me a free replacement, which I think he should have. In fact he implied that I must have hit it laterally, which I assure you (and him) was not the case, but he obviously didn't believe me.
I can totally understand that, because even I don't think a wheel just randomly fails like that, but in all honesty that is what happened, which is why I was posting here asking if there's anything besides an actual sideways impact to the wheel that would send the rim so out of whack.

What really confuses me is why he seemed so unwilling/unsure of its possibility to true the thing. It's really no more than a cm out of true, probably less, though I didn't measure it. There's no cracks or kinks in the metal, I wouldn't really describe it as bent or warped so much as heavily untrue.

I have seen that happen if a wheel was laced improperly. If the spokes cross over the hole in the rim it was laced improperly. The spokes should cross over on the opposite side of the hole (180 degrees across from the hole) and should pull outward slightly at the hole in the rim. There are a few other things but that is the major one I have seen.

Wheels are plenty strong in plane, but actually quite weak across plane. And if you're turning sharply(that is, turning the wheel at an angle greater than a turn you can can expect to ride through) then there's an excellent chance that you've exposed the wheel to significant lateral forces and bent it.

There wqas a video clip going around a few years ago about a racer swerving to avoid a dog who got out on the road and his front wheel pretty much collapsed.

If he doesn't true the wheel, go to a different LBS for an opinion. Post a picture of it.

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What?

Sounds a little bit like you're trying to describe a wheel built in lateral cross. Nothing wrong with that, it has some theoretical advantages although lack of otherwise comparable wheels means that there aren't any measured data.

Yup. That was a Lightweight wheel. They make strong wheels, but as you noted, wheels can succumb to certain out of plane forces. The impact with the dog didn't appear to be a high impulse collision.

__________________
Sex is horrid
Pain is Fun
I cut my fingers off
One by one

I think I forgot to mention that this was a rear wheel, so I'm not sure how good a comparison the racer and the dog are.

At any rate I hope my little foreign mechanic is diligently turning my spokes right now and I'll be on the road again tomorrow night. If not, I will take it to a more upscale place and see what they have to say.

I believe you did.

For a rear it isn't a good comparison. Unless you skidded and banged up against a curb or something merely braking and turning won't put much of a lateral load on a rear wheel.