I had a thought about how the TL would look with polished wheels. I don`t really like the chrome look. Well, I had polished the wheels on my 79 Vette, and they came out sweet, so I tried it this time. Got the paint remover, which takes off the clear coat, the wheel compound, and buffing wheel. To make a long story short, after I removed the paint and coating, I tried buffing, using the wheel,. and I just couldn`t get a shine out of it. It just made it into a gray color. HOLY SH*T ! I thought maybe the`re might be paint still on the area, but kept the wheel in one spot. NO FU*CKIN LUCK!! The wheels might be made out of some type of cast. To make it even more worse, I applied the remover to 2 WHEELS!! They look like crap! I guess its time to call the wheel repair place. DAM!

 

I would chrome them IMHO.
Craig

 

Agreed, maybe since you started now would be a good time to get the chromed? The cost shouldn't be more than the cost to replace those two.

 

You'd have to 'pre-treat' the other two before chroming if you wanted a uniform look to them. Chroming a polished wheel vs chroming a matte wheel would yield a different end result.

 

I didn`t even get to POLISH the wheels, It didn`t polish!

 

That is a gutsy move. I was afraid to hardwire my V1 in this TL and you guys are modding the crap out of it. Wish I was that daring.

 

Yeah, sometimes ya win, sometimes ya lose

 

Danno, that makes no sense, the rear of my rims are not painted (I noticed when I took them off to paint the calipers), they are shinny aluminum, on parts of it (no paint).

Check the backs, or where they mount to the hubs. they should be shinny aluminum

 

They are "shinny aluminum" on the back, but not on the front, right?. They are painted on the front.

 

Danno,

Yes, painted on front, shinny on back, however, my point is is they are polished on the back, they should be able to be polished on the front two as the material is the same, and not what you are thinking.

Most likely, you are not through the paint yet.

There are shops out there that can polish them, but it will cost $, maybe a little less than what you will pay for new wheels.

What are you driving on in the mean time?

 

The way I worked it out as far as driving, the paint remover is suppose to work in about 3-4 hrs, so I applied it in the morning and scraped and washed the wheels in the afternoon. Then did the buffing. It might be true about still having paint on the wheel. I`m calling the Eastwood Co. where I bought the remover and buffing kit and see what they say. I really worked into a spot on the wheel, trying to "burn" off whatever was preventing a shine and didn`t work.

 

I wish you much luck on this.

 

:smackhead :wow: i just can't understand why some people do these things to perfectly good (and new) cars..just blows my mind