Alloy Wheels Refurbishment

[SVS]

I've just had my alloys refurbished by a company in North London (£80 each) and I'm wondering if I could recommend them here as they did a great job and handled a problem, which occured in the course of the job, very well.

[jonthebarber]

Hi

Makes the car , when they have been done ! Had mine refurbed few months ago wheels , hubs and calipers .... Looks spanking :-) I live in chester and they were done by F1 alloys , tyres off , dipped , repaired and painted .... Fantastic ! 3rd car he's done for me over the years , in fact my old Rx8 is still on his website .

Enjoy ..... And watch them kerbs ;-)

Jon

[DanD]

Considering how many of us RX owners have experienced problems with alloys and had them refurbished, I wonder why you never see RXs with alternative alloys... just a thought...

[jonthebarber]

Hi

My personal opinion is the wheels that come with the Rx look pretty good as standard , aftermarket ones can ruin the look and make the car cheap looking . But it is only my thoughts :-)

Jon

[digitaldecks]

I was looking at trying to get a second set alloys of eBay for winter tyres but it just seems to be hard to get hold of or they are in bad nic or too far to go.

I was wondering the same thing that reading about issues and the poor quality alloy from Lexus i have yet to see any with after market alloys.

after market alloys are actually working out cheaper but finding some that really suites the RX. will have to start doing some homework and a bit of Photoshop

[lurch]

I had mine replaced by lexus at 6 years old, they were replaced with refurbed wheels which lasted just over a year before they started to show signs of bubbling, so I have just had them done properly, powder coated in a slightly darker porsche grey metallic which look the dogs b......s against the dark blue mine is.

[DanD]

Hmmm... It's 18 months since mine were refurbished and all 4 wheels are again showing signs of corrosion.

Has anyone had their wheels refurbished and still do not see any problem after a couple of years? - What process was used... poweder coating or other?

Anyone opted to go for after market rims?

[Boxbrownie]

Yes I have, the original alloy wheels seem to be made from an alloy that is contaiminated from the manufacturing process, we had a BMW with bog standard bottom of the range BMW alloy wheels, we sold the car last year after having it from new. The wheels were absolutely perfect ( as was the the bodywork actually) without a sign of flaking or bubbling........oh yes, it was bought in 1998

And that car was cleaned maybe 5 or 6 times a year, never given one of these special valets which seem so popular nowadays, just a bucket of water and soap and a soft sponge, I guess it all depends upon the quality underneath ultimately.

For my RX I went onto the Mytyres website and bought "wheel and tyre" package, I picked thier cheapest alloys suitable for the RX (17") they are a boring 5 spoke design similar to the originals and are TUV approved and made in Germany surprisingly enough, I am confident they will outlast the originals!

As you can see, my cars do not get cleaned often

[lurch]

Hmmm... It's 18 months since mine were refurbished and all 4 wheels are again showing signs of corrosion.

Has anyone had their wheels refurbished and still do not see any problem after a couple of years? - What process was used... poweder coating or other?

Anyone opted to go for after market rims?

Had several wheels done in the past , powder coated and once done have lasted until sold the cars. Lexus replaced mine with refurbed wheels which only lasted a year before bubbling started again and I clean my car regularly . They I believe were only wet sprayed refurbed and not powder coated. Always found powder coating the way to go.

[Romasato]

When I was buying mine RX, I did point out the bubbling to the dealer - he offered a "discounted" £40/wheel refurb to take care of it.
So I asked for gun metal grey colour instead - but was expecting it to be just a bit darker from silver - but apparently it is so much darker. So now the car is all on the night side - but I am getting used to it.

Though I doubt they did a full-alloy refurb/paint - just the visible side to save the effort for the profit.
And I forgot to ask refurb the spare wheel... Imagine that... But I will take that one wheel to a proper refurb guys to see what can be done.
Here's what it looks like if anyone is curious:

[lurch]

These are mine, had them powdercoated porsche grey metallic , look good against the dark blue paint of car.

[Billy Garrett]

My 2006 RX400h had badly corroded rear wheels and slightly corroded at approx. years old, and Lexus replaced all 4 wheels.

It is now 8years old and all 4 wheels have some corrosion, but not quite as bad as the first one.

HOWEVER, I had a flat recently and I was horrified to find the "new" spare was disastrously corroded.

These wheels on the 400h are chrome plated and not powder coated or painted. The chrome was falling off in lumps! What a mess!!!

My 2 front wheels had winter tyres and I wanted to go back to normal tyres for the "summer" such as it is!.

So I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and buy a set of wheels from eBay.

The ones I found were from a rx300 and cost £100 each with reasonable thread left. (+ £40 shipping on a small pallet)

When they arrived I was delighted with the quality and that I had got nearly new wheels and tyres for not much more than refurbishing the old ones.

Then I realised they were not chrome plated and don't look quite as good as the originals.

But they still look at lot better than the bubbling Chrome ones.

SO, my long winded point is, try to get them rechromed rather than powder coated if you want them to look original.

But I think you might have problems finding someone to do chroming...or maybe not!

BTW, I am thinking of saying goodbye to my lovely 400h in 2014 when the new Tesla Electric model X comes to the UK.

Sorry Lexus!!!

PS, I would like to find out how the flat Battery problem was solved. I did it with an Optima deep discharge Battery...