Are these wheels beyond saving.

S

Spawne32

New member
Recently bought a 07 grand prix GXP im in the process of restoring, cosmetically it is as a disaster, years of just hard neglect and winter weather have taken its toll. The wheels are staggered forged alcoa two piece wheels fronts being 18x8 and rears being 18x7 from the factory. Rears have never touched a curb and are mostly just dirty and neglected, but the fronts have been winged and dinged on multiple occasions. The look im going for for these wheels is a black chrome effect, didn't want to get crazy expensive with the stock wheels, and duplicolor offers their "shadow chrome" kit which gives me exactly what I am looking for, while im confident this will work well on the back wheels, I am skeptical about the front's, and not sure if these are worth saving and what I should do here. Should i sand them down and respray the effected areas with a "chrome" paint and then do the shadow effect afterwards? Or do you think these wheels are too far gone to warrant paint at this point and need to be fully restored and powdercoated.

Dupli-Color :: Shadow

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That tire definitely needs to be replaced immediately! Putting chrome paint over chrome plate is a pretty junky solution. I would have all four stripped and then dipped or sand and paint the whole wheel.

- Patrick
 
pmnewton said:
That tire definitely needs to be replaced immediately!
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Looks like it got potholed pretty hard. I wouldn't trust it either.

As to the wheels, they could be restored, but at what it'll probably take you could buy an inexpensive aftermarket set.
 
Refurbished wheels would be an easy fix, probably cheaper too. Since finding Wheels Tires and More dot com I haven't had *any* wheels refinished, I just buy already redone ones.
 
Alloy Wheel Specialists may be available in your area..
Have used them in my business for years to repair Client's wheels, and they do perfect work..
It is always hard to find where the damage used to be when they are done..

They can come out to you or you can bring the car to them usually..
They know how to check the wheels for straightness and can usually straighten most if they are not too damaged..

So, how important are those wheels to you ?? The cost to repair will always be WAY less than buying a new one..
Good luck!
DanF
 
Stokdgs said:
Alloy Wheel Specialists may be available in your area..
Have used them in my business for years to repair Client's wheels, and they do perfect work..
It is always hard to find where the damage used to be when they are done..

They can come out to you or you can bring the car to them usually..
They know how to check the wheels for straightness and can usually straighten most if they are not too damaged..

So, how important are those wheels to you ?? The cost to repair will always be WAY less than buying a new one..
Good luck!
DanF
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I am a big fan of the wheels, they are special edition wheels that only came on this car for 3 years or so on one particular model, I don't believe they are even available to be purchased as a replacement, rockauto only listed the rears as being available through their re-manufacturing companies. Which makes sense since the front's are staggered for a 255 tire from the factory. Any idea how much something like that would cost? Ill have to shoot them some pictures and get a quote.
 
They are beautiful wheels for sure ! Glad you want to see about preserving them - no one else will have them on their vehicle, that's for sure ! :)

Not sure how much they would charge, but for normal alloy silver painted with clear coat and road rashed on the edges like yours, they charge me I believe around $150 each wheel and they came out as I said, perfect...
They dont just fix the repair, they clean up the entire wheel so it all matches...

Hope you can find them or perhaps another wheel repair place.. If you find one locally, it would always be good to go down there, look around their shop, look at some "befores" and "afters", and see what they say they can do for YOUR wheels, and go from there..

Good Luck !
Dan F
 
Yeah, if you're trying to keep the car original, Spawn, I believe that narrows your options. If not, the sky's the limit !
 
Wheel Collision Center in Bath PA can restore those wheels to an exact factory finish I'm sure. They can do almost anything. They were the first to be able to match BMW/Merc hyper/brilliant silver.

This may not sound like a big deal - and I asked the dude there why it was so hard. He told me in Germany/Austria they were actually using LEAD in the brilliant silver paint - which you couldn't do in the USA. Somehow, they came up with a process that duplicates it.

They can do chrome, shadow chrome - pretty much anything you can think of. I highly recommend you keep the vehicle original with the factory wheels. They can restore them, using powder coating. They aren't cheap though.

Check it out:

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alloy wheel specialists quoted me $250 dollars a wheel to repair them IF they were NOT chrome, he said if they were chrome then im SOL. So looks like im either gonna be repainting/powdercoating these or replacing them. Seeing as how replacements are $214.15 a piece.
 
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