Anyone polished their stock wheels?

B

bvan

Member
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'03 P5, '04 Matrix
Has anyone polished their stock painted alloys? Mine came with a bunch of curb rash and I am looking at either painting or polishing them in the next couple of months.

If you have polished them (not painted...I already read through that thread), how did you do it, and do you have pics?

Anyone have pics of ANY polished aluminum wheels on a sunlight silver P5?

Thanks
 
I guess I want to know if anyone has taken their original wheels (painted "silver") and sanded the finish off then polished them.

Anyone???

Pics???
 
I wouldn't think that the polished finish would be a do it yourself project, but you may find a company that could pull it off........but why??????

You could look into chrome or shiny silver spraypaint....That would be an option....
 
it would probably be easier finding a set of polished wheels for sale. i know i sold mine for next to nothing.
 
We are a bike shop, but we do it all the time. How much work it takes, depends on how you want the wheels to look.

First you need to strip off all the original paint/clearcoat. We use a chemical stripper if its really tough stuff. Its also easier on wheels because there are so many crevices and areas its hard to get to.

After this, and assesment needs to be made as to how smooth the surface is. The smoother it is = shinier aluminum. We start with coarse sandpaper and work our way to 800 grit until all the nicks, scratches, casting flaws, etc are gone.

Next you polish. We have a very expensive buffer, but you can use a drill and polishing wheels which you can buy online as a kit. There are varying grades of compound starting with black for cutting, ending with red rouge for the final buff for gloss. We typically spend up to 4 hours per wheel if they are rough to start with or unpolished.

The more time you spend, the better they will look. It is tedious, but can look really good. Don't plan on doing anything else for a while once you start. Its a good snow/rainy day project.

Hope this helps....
 
randyscycle said:
We are a bike shop, but we do it all the time. How much work it takes, depends on how you want the wheels to look.

First you need to strip off all the original paint/clearcoat. We use a chemical stripper if its really tough stuff. Its also easier on wheels because there are so many crevices and areas its hard to get to.

After this, and assesment needs to be made as to how smooth the surface is. The smoother it is = shinier aluminum. We start with coarse sandpaper and work our way to 800 grit until all the nicks, scratches, casting flaws, etc are gone.

Next you polish. We have a very expensive buffer, but you can use a drill and polishing wheels which you can buy online as a kit. There are varying grades of compound starting with black for cutting, ending with red rouge for the final buff for gloss. We typically spend up to 4 hours per wheel if they are rough to start with or unpolished.

The more time you spend, the better they will look. It is tedious, but can look really good. Don't plan on doing anything else for a while once you start. Its a good snow/rainy day project.

Hope this helps....
Click to expand...

dang must be expensive to get this done $.$
 
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It's not difficult. I've polished a set of wheels before. Easier and less expensive to just trade for a set of polished ones though.
 
Thanks everyone. The reason I asked was due to a bunch of curbrash and stuff left by the previous owner. I don't really want a new set, so I thought maybe polishing was the way to go. I doubt I could get the scratches out and make it look original without doing the whole wheel (ie. touchup certain areas). I do have access to a proper buffer, so it would just be the strippiong part of it that would be difficult. At any rate, I'm looking aftermarket as well and thinking of using the stock wheels for snow tires.
 
bvan said:
The reason I asked was due to a bunch of curbrash and stuff left by the previous owner. I don't really want a new set, so I thought maybe polishing was the way to go. I doubt I could get the scratches out and make it look original without doing the whole wheel (ie. touchup certain areas).
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat - one wheel with a lot of curb rash. Some day I'll find a shop to clean it up, because I don't want to sand this myself.

Aluminum dust isn't terribly toxic, although you don't want to breath it or get it in your eyes. Be aware though that some people have allergic reactions to aluminum dust and for them contact exposure is a big deal. For instance, Buddy Ebsen was originally supposed to be the tin man in the "Wizard of Oz", but they painted him with aluminum dust, some of which he inhaled, and it put him in the hospital (and out of the movie.) See for instance:

http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/ozebsen.htm

So if you do go this route, be careful about the dust.
 
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