Bringing back my wheels from the dead? Possible?

[MinorDetails]

Hello,



I had a question regarding my wheels on my `00 M Coupe. When I purchased the car, they looked like they were sprayed w/ an acid based wheel cleaner. They are discolored in many spots and it seems permanent.



I haven`t yet tried any products out to see if I can take out any of the marks. I don`t know if the wheels have the clearcoat eaten out and due to that they are discolored.



Any helpful hints to possibly bring them back to life w/o spending $110/wheel for refinishing? I have access to a PC and cordless drill (for adding buffing wheels).



I`ll take some pictures of the wheels tonight and post them. Until then, this is the kind of wheel it is:

[daisuke]

I recently started doing the same thing to my rims, they looked like they had been neglected from the day the car was made (it`s a 95 saturn) and I decided to do something about it. I first tried using a cleaner wax, which did absolutely nothing of any use, mind you that I`m doing all this by hand. I then tried a clearcoat polish (the really non-aggresive kind) and it did nothing either. In my search for other products I thought I`d give TR-3 resin glaze a try since there were some 30-year-old bottles laying around at work and I didn`t expect much, but lo and behold, this underrated stuff got most of the surface contamination away after very little rubbing-in, I`ve now done all of my wheels with TR-3 and while it hasn`t taken all the stains out it still looks a LOT better than it did before, it actually shines now.



I`m going to use DACP on them now because there are some deep stains that would probably take a long time to get out with a regular cleaner, so I`d say go with a low or medium intensity polish on the PC and see what that does for you.



Unless you can see bare metal I don`t think your clear coat is that badly off, they only way to find out is to make them look as nice as you can first, that way the bad spots will stick out like a sore thumb.



D

[MinorDetails]

I`ll try that.



Any other products you`ve found to help?

[JasonD]

You should treat your wheels just like your paint. If your car`s paint was oxidized and spotted, what would you do? Well, do the same thing for your wheels and they will look great. To protect them from future oxidations and stains, use AIO + SG x 2 or 3.

[shaf]

Originally posted by JDookie

You should treat your wheels just like your paint. If your car`s paint was oxidized and spotted, what would you do? Well, do the same thing for your wheels and they will look great. To protect them from future oxidations and stains, use AIO + SG x 2 or 3.

I agree. Just imagine that the paint damage was on your car`s body instead of the paint - what course of action would you take then?



By default try a milder polish first....