rxrxrx

Took my 04-TL w/Nav thru a car wash (the drive up ones that you put into neutral and the roller rolls the car forward) and noticed that my front left rim is scratched all round 360 degrees. My other 3 rims were ok.

Anyone else had this problem? I owned many cars before and rims were never a problem thru the car wash.

Anything I can do? Any suggestions is welcome. Thanks!

jimthegreek

I know , or shoudl i say we all pretty much know that the factory wheels stick out more than the tires do, which causes this type of damage when the jackass behind the wheel isnt paying as much attention as we do....

sorry to hear about that...

danno

Larger tires or no car washes.(automatic)

Skeedatl

Yep, my driver side OEM's got scratched by those F*CKING TIRE GUIDES MOTHER F-ER....*@#&$)(@ $*%(#(*!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say I was a bit disappointed that happened. The only fix was previously mentioned...tires that are slightly wider than the rim or tires with a built in rim protector (like Falkens) with hit the guide first protecting the rim.

brucedeb1

Thanks to other members on this forum I was able to get my rim fixed as good as new for around a hundred dollars. I notice you are in Huntington Beach. You can take it to Eds wholesale tires on Western in Torrance. Between Torrance Blvd. and Sepulveda on the East side of the street. They gave me a loaner rim and took two days to fix mine. It looks great and there is no way to be able to tell anything was ever done to it. I now take corners much wider than I ever used to and have never taken my TL to an automatic car wash with the roller system. I use the wash bay wash stations. Hope this helps all who are local to the South Bay area of southern CA.

Skeedatl

I fixed my OEM problems by getting 19's

apwalsh

Some carwashes have plastic/rubber guides that will not scratch or scrape the rims. Those are the only ones I will let my baby through. Why would you think the rims would not be scraped from metal guides?

mattlana

I took mine twice through the automatic brushless car wash that had the guide lined with plastic. The only thing was when the car came out, the outside edge of the rim was all black from the tire residue from all the other cars.

My dealer said he had never heard of any rim damage from car washes.....he had no reason to lie to me.