Have seen pics of recently refurbed alloy wheels from a MB forum i'm a member of.
The pics i've seen are very close to the original non durable but good looking diamond cut and lacquered finish, i believe the colour used was silver chrome.
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The refurb company concerned are shot blasting the entire wheel and powder coating/curing, i wouldn't say the finish is perfection but looks good to me and certainly good enough for wheels etc, the wheel prices are simply unbeatable, near enough half normal price.
Site could be worth noting for anyone considering wheel refurb or other metal that needs similar work, bike frames etc at some point, i have no connection with the company. which is at Birmingham central.
www.citypowdercoating.co.uk/#!
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I think this is a service which is getting cheaper as so many places do it.
There's a place in Widnes which is highly regarded and only charges £35, including tyre removal and refitting.
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BMW dealers do it for fifty notes - guarantee on the work as well.
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>> BMW dealers do it for fifty notes -
Is that a full strip refurb RP, if so that's good if it's all in, or are they getting a mobile chappy in and doing them with just the tyre pushed off the bead one side and paint sprayed in the back of a tranny (no tittering at the back), then doubling the price?
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That's on a par with the place i referred to BP, good price indeed if they offer a decent range of colours and finishes
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Hoping someone comes up with a Northants/Beds/Leics area reference, around £180 here for 4x15" wheels not including tyre strip/refit, will need the outer diamond cut rings of my 17" winter set doing in the spring, ggodness knows what they will quote for that, the alloy lurgy has been creeping under the lacquer during storage and it looks horrible.
My summer set is fine despite SWM's best efforts to wreck all bar one of them..he typed hoping she doesn't glance at the screen before i can press enter..;).
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Looks a good price, I paid 250€ earlier this year to have my summer Borbet OE's redone. Winter wheels still looking good as new as they were waxed before they ever saw a hub.
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>> Hoping someone comes up with a Northants/Beds/Leics area reference,
Are Pristine www.pristinealloywheels.co.uk too expensive / far away? They used to be the firm that was regarded as the standard setter for alloy refurb.
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Pristine were always about the most expensive, don't know if that's still the case but they say nothing of prices on their site.
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That's jolly good typing for broken fingers GB !
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>> That's jolly good typing for broken fingers GB !
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yes and keep posting to this thread, it'll send that sentence further up so less chance of 'er spotting it.
it's a bit like Father Dougall unable to resist pressing the red button you're not supposed to press in the scene on the plane, you know you shouldn't do it but that devil over your shoulder urges you, then vanishes with a manic laugh leaving you to take the rap alone..;)
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A few years ago I went to an alloy wheel manufacturer in Kent to see if we could help them.
They were selling wheels to the major car manufacturers in Europe and the UK for £30 a pop and that was too expensive. Each wheel was cast then milled and X-rayed. They also had to design the things.
Each year the manufacturers would ask for a 5% price reduction.
They went out of business (well shipped everything over to South Africa).
What gets my goat is that we lost a really nice little company and the manufactures still get to charge us £900 for a set of alloys!
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>> They were selling wheels to the major car manufacturers in Europe and the UK for
>> £30 a pop and that was too expensive. Each wheel was cast then milled and
>> X-rayed. They also had to design the things.
I think most people would be angry and amazed at just how little such a factory gets for it's finished product.
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>> I think most people would be angry and amazed at just how little such a factory gets for it's finished product.
Aye, you got that right ( he mumbles...)
:-(
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Unfortunately, the alloys on my Golf MK6 have 'Atlanta' alloys with mirror finish on the front, exposed surfaces. All very smart but can't be refurbished like a sprayed Aluminium finish that is common to most cars shod with these pesky nuisances.
I ever so slightly kerbed mine a few weeks after purchase, as you do, and have to live with it. My previous Golf's wheels, without this lacquer covered mirror finish, could very easily have been refurbished to remove damaged
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I have to say, since I've had the steel rimmed balloon tyred Winters on - not so paranoid !
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Do these refurbishers attend to the insides of the rims?
My car has standard mirror-finish alloys. They look a bit flash but suit the car and I don't really mind them like that, although I would prefer them to be a more restrained grey or black.
However one wheel in particular is losing about 1 psi a day, which is a bit of a nuisance as one has to top it up at least once every six days, at 50p a time too. I believe it is leaking at the rim as a result of corrosion inside the rim. Got two new tyres a few months ago and urged the tyre place to put lots of gunge inside the rim, but that one is still leaking.
Were I to spend a hundred quid plus having them fettled, would they retain air better afterwards?
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AC,
yes the type of place we are talking about does a full chemical strip of the entire wheel, followed by shotblasting and fettling of the worst of the nicks and dips from corrosion and womens driving..:-)...i'll probably wreck one of mine later for that quip.
Then the entire wheel is coated, some all in one colour, some use a darker paint on the inside which looks better when on the car, obviously more expensive..
The mobile guys are really just performing a rub down and paint job, fine to sell a car on and dealers get them done this way usually on sale cars, but not going to be a long term refurb like proper workshops provide.
If you take the offending wheel off and lay it on it's sides and run soapy water round the beads i reckon you'll find the spot(s), i think you have manky beads..oo-er missus, if not run round the wheel and tyre with a spray bottle of soapy stuff and you should find the place.
My daughters Honda Civic had corroded beads the very good tyre chap i've found spent a few minutes buffing the corrosion off the bead seats with an electric grinder of some sort, sorted.
Oldgit,
some of the new chrome paints used by these refurbers are getting close to the original diamond cut and laquer finish i believe you are describing, MB use this finish too as well as some others, it looks nice but the slightest pin prick lets water in which spider webs and blooms under the lacquer and looks awful PDQ.
Might be worth calling at a proper wheel refurber near you and seeing if he can do anything for you, you can get them recut and lacquered to get the original finish but you'll be lucky to get 6 months warranty on the finish, as it will only be as durable as the original.
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>> Then the entire wheel is coated, some all in one colour, some use a darker
>> paint on the inside which looks better when on the car, obviously more expensive..
AC,
Just to add to GB's comments, they'll change the colour if you would prefer it in a more restrained hue, but it might be worth holding up some sort of 'dummy' of the same colour against the car so that the look meets your expectations before you go the whole hog.
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>> I think most people would be angry and amazed at just how little such a
>> factory gets for it's finished product.
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I visited a wellish known German factory a few years back. My visit was to review their aerospace lighting division, but that's a small part of their business - the bulk is automotive.
They showed me a rear light cluster for a Golf. Not sure how much VW would charge for a new one, but they were getting 8 euros for each one - and that was the full assembly with the bulbs in
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Alloy wheel refurb without breaking the bank - Bill Payer
