Alloy Wheels

[Guest rusty]

hello,

 

I have a X reg 1.9 TDi Ghia.

 

The alloy wheels (I thought they were solid alloy :D ) have been scraped or rubbed and there seems to be a white undercoat showing through. From the appearance I would guess there is a thin covering of something over the wheels giving the silver effect. Sorry if the description is poor ! 3 of the wheels have this problem.

 

Is there some way of smartening these up?. Is it a question of just spraying with some kind of paint?

 

TIA

 

Rusty

[HJT]

Try Wicked Wheels. Haven't used them myself but have heard they are good.

 

Howard

[Dave-G]

The "white undercoat" is probably oxidised (aka rusted) alluminium :D

[Topbloke]

wicked wheels are very good but a tad exspensive they only tend to repair minor damage and srapes. the price of geting them repainted may be more than picking up a second hand set unless you know some one with a bead blaster and fancy having a go yourself :D

[Guest nimrod]

The finish on the wheels is a paint or powder coat, its when this coating is removed that the base coat or alloy shows through! and corrosion starts :(

the majority of alloys are covered in this way unless they are polished or have a diamond turned finish, both these finishes need constant work to keep them looking decent or a good coat of lacquer of which if chipped and then moisture gets under! looks even worse as the alloy corrodes leaving a build up of white dust bubbling under the surface :(

it's best to get a professional company to refinnish your wheels as they will have the means of trueing the outer edge to get back the correct profile by either machining it back or building it up and then cutting it back

these companies have the correct profiles programmed into their equipment so the finished shaped is the correct one and is consistant between all your wheels!

[Ivor_E_Tower]

Rusty - been through this with mine, the first owner has marked all wheels badly. Chips Away came and looked at the car, said that the wheels are a machined finish and have to be taken off, tyres removed and re-machined to restore the finish. The white appearance would appear to be oxidisation. Anyone know how best to fix this without costing loads of dosh? I'm tempted to try some aluminium paint. Best solution would appear to be buy new wheels but we've had a post to say they are about

[rwtomkins]

this has come up before and no one has yet come up with the answer. probably wicked wheels can do very superficial stuff but as nimrod and mr tower indicate, if the damage is at all substantial the wheels will have to come off and be sent away for machining. i've got a couple of damaged alloys and i've tried searching the web with search terms such as alloy wheel repairs or alloy wheel refurbishment. it produces a small number of results but they all involve such hassle and expense i've not got around to doing it yet. first you have to take off your wheels, then you have to take the tyres off the wheels, then you have to despatch the wheels to the repairer, then they have to fix them, then you have to do the whole thing in reverse to get the wheels back on the car again, only this time you have to have the wheels rebalanced as well. nightmare. plus without any recommendations you don't even know if the job is going to be done to your satisfaction. i've just decided to live with it until the corrosion gets so bad it can't be put off any longer.

[Guest jtwonk]

I've had this done to several wheels in the past for either minor kerbing damage or corrosion under the laquer. The most i have had to pay was

[Dave-G]

:) sounds like UV has discoloured "too thick" lacquer ;)

 

;) the chances are the 'goldy ones have allready had some repair work :)

[seatkid]

Common everyday lacquer tends to go yellow/gold when applied to wheels (especially when heated). Once exposed, aluminium oxidises (white) readily and with moisture etc. can pit quite badly so I would touch the lacquer up quickly otherwise the wheel would need to be machined or thoroughly sand blasted and recoated to restore it. They rarely look as good as new.

 

If the job is done badly then you end up have to pump the tyres up every week as some aluminium alloys are also porous.