What to use to polish and protect GM polished wheels?

I

imported_RedlineIRL

New member
I'd like to hand polish and protect my wheels before it starts geting colder, but don't know what is best to use. My wheels are like most newer GM vehicle wheels, polished to look like chrome. They are not true chrome alloy wheels or the plastic clad wheels. They are starting to show some signs of swirls on them, I'd like to use something that hide the swirls and bring out the chrome look and depth.



Any reccomendations on what to use?
 
Are they Polished aluminum??



Either way stay away from any acid based products GM released a TSB about using Acid based solovents causing pitting, and stains on their wheels.



GM reccomends a mild detergent and 3M Chrome and Metal Polish, That would be the cheaper stuff. So if anyone has a High quality brand please chime in.
 
vtec92civic said:
so the wheels are polished aluminum?
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Thats what I am assuming. GM made 3 types of wheels that I am aware of. Polished chrome (Grand Am GT's) with the arrowhead are probably the most prevalent in my head right now.



Plastic Clad with spray on chrome. Older cavaliers and such had this style.



And polished aluminum



I am not aware of his make model of his vehicle so that leaves me with the latter of the three as his application.



Other then the old school steelies. *steel wheels/hubcaps* but obviously he dosent' have them
 
polished aluminum are some of the hardest wheels IMO to care for . . . . especially to keep swirls out of them as well.



Depending on how bad it actually is you might need to do a light wet sand and buff with some metal polish.
 
What are you guys talking about? The original poster has the GM "high polish" wheels, which are polished aluminum with clearcoat on them. They are usually the base gray/silver painted wheel that instead has been polished and cleared. In my case I swear I was trying to polish out marring that was on the aluminum wheel under the clear, because it wouldn't budge, no matter what I did. I came to the conclusion that no mass-produced affordable polishing job is going to give a true Autopian-level mirror finish, so they get what they get and then clear over it, and then we get to look at the sand marks/buffer trails under the clear for as long as we have the car...
 
If it's the same finish as on my GMC Yukon XLD (chrome-like but not really chrome plated), it's weird stuff. Mine (both the original ones and the set I bought new from GM) have both regular surface marring and clearly visible flaws that seem to be under/in the finish.



In an attempt to fix the surface marring, I tried gently polishing mine with M205 and IMO it didn't turn out all that great...didn't fix the marring and I can't quite tell if it dulled them a tiny bit or not (could just be me, but at any rate I was disappointed).



No way to fix marring on the chromed-plastic center caps either AFAIK.



I just sealed them with FK1000P and decided not to worry about the marring...yeah, I know...not so Autopian of me :o
 
Sheesh, Accumulator, I remember when I was telling my sad story on my wheels and threw out that maybe the marring was under the clear...you kind of rolled your eyes. I feel better now that you have had the same experience (including the "did I make them look worse trying to fix them??").
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Sheesh, Accumulator, I remember when I was telling my sad story on my wheels and threw out that maybe the marring was under the clear...you kind of rolled your eyes. I feel better now that you have had the same experience (including the "did I make them look worse trying to fix them??").
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Heh heh, yeah...nothing like having something karmic like that happen to me to reorient my perspective :o



I'd tried more conventional stuff (the PI-III twins) on the Yukon's original wheels with little to show for it, and thought the M205 would work a miracle or something. Nice sharp abrasives....yeah...take those to your what-is-it?-finish wheels...feeling lucky are you? Gee, guess I shoulda known better but at least now I know what *not* to recommend.
 
Yeah they are polished aluminum wheels. They are not too swirled, just very light scratches in areas, I'm sure a glaze can hide most of it. I'm surely not going to attempt to machine polish them, and it's probably impossible to make them perfect. If there is a light hand polish that will work on most of them, I'd give it a try.



I'd like to use something that will bring out the depth of the wheels. What about specialized wheel waxes? I've seen the Poorboys Wheel Wax and it looks like it might be durable, but not for sure how it'd look on these type of wheels. Anyone tried this stuff with good success?
 
I thought that just about any wheel that comes from the factory is, except maybe for some high end stuff, is clear coated? The Vette wheels on my truck are "polished" and then clear coated.
 
Surf City makes a pretty good product called Diamond Edge Metal Dressing.

I used that. Let it dry to a haze

and buffed off. Then I did 2 coats of Collinite 845 on them.

This is my 2nd winter coming up doing these steps. Well worth it.
 
GeorgesBlazah said:
I thought that just about any wheel that comes from the factory is, except maybe for some high end stuff, is clear coated?
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I've heard all sorts of conflicting opinions; mine sure don't respond to moderate/gentle polishing the way I'd expect clearcoat paint to do :nixweiss



My "machine finished" Audi wheels are the same way and as best I can tell (conflicting info on those too) they have some sort of clear anodizing or powdercoat.



Some of these are real mysteries....yeah, the factory wheels on both my 'vettes were simply clearcoated with paint too, just like the ones on my Blazer and my Impala SS.



RedlineIRL said:
Yeah they are polished aluminum wheels. They are not too swirled, just very light scratches in areas, I'm sure a glaze can hide most of it. I'm surely not going to attempt to machine polish them, and it's probably impossible to make them perfect. If there is a light hand polish that will work on most of them, I'd give it a try.
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Maybe something like DWG would do some concealing without compromising some durable LSP.



I just live with the marring and layer on KSG or FK1000P.
 
I know mine are cleared because I curbed one of them and repaired it, and I could see chipped paint as well as sanding thru it as part of the repair. IMO GM isn't going to put any polished aluminum wheels out there (except for some special limited edition as noted) without putting something on them (i.e., paint or chrome or powdercoat) for protection.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
I know mine are cleared because I curbed one of them ...
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Your suppostion regarding what's realistic to expect from GM makes a lot of sense :think: I oughta go look at the original wheels off the Yukon, they have some chips where crimp-on weights were pulled off.



My memory says they looked like chrome but just a tad different (like, no copper/etc. layers or something like that) but it's been forever since I looked at 'em.



If I *had* to take a guess right this moment I'd probably lean towards powdercoating.
 
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