OK there are often a few posts in regards to people who damage their mags as to what they do and who they go to etc etc. So I thought I might look into this a bit more and see what's out there.

OK now the majority of us have chrome wheels "bling bling" these days. And these wheels are 9 times out of 10 made out of alloy not steel like they use to be. Most people if they hit a gutter or curb and scratch them then have to replace them as we have been told for many years they can't be fixed as they can't be re-chromed. Well that's not true.

If you own a set of alloy chrome wheels and have damaged them and want them repaired this is what you do. You look up the Yellow Pages for a "Pewter finisher". What happens is these guys have the damaged area filled with in with alloy and then they use a special pewter paint over top again to make it look like new. Now the pewter paint is about $90 per litre , but you only use about 80ml per wheel. Pewter finishers have all sorts of finishes that you can chose from including shodow chrome, silver and chrome. They mix a clear coat in with it during the aplication also. Now it costs about $90 per wheel to have them fixed, depending on the damage of course. Even if you want a set of mags but they don't make them in the colour you want they can change them to any colour you like, even colour match them to your car.

Reason you cant use the old chroming process is that the wheels these days are alloy not steel like they use to be so they can't be done the "old school" way. If you have steel wheels yes you can still have yours done the old fashioned method

So bottom line is if you have a set of alloy chrome wheels and you have hit a curb by accident don't dispear you can have them fixed without replacing it.

Hope that helps people out

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Bite off more than you can chew, then chew like hell!

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there are a fair few places which can do this for you. ive seen the work of superior car care at redcliffe who charge about $250 to do a set of four wheels, everything included. theyll mix it to have pearl through the paint etc, wheels come up very good. just a thought, if youre interested this is the place id be calling

31st March 2004 - 10:19 PM  Reply  Quote

Yeah you can still do it to any age wheel. If they are steel wheels like alot of older say 70's and 80's wheels are you are better off to have them chrome plated by an electroplater. They dip it I think from memory into a copper solution first and then chrome plate them

You can still have the pewter process done to steel wheels if you like, entirely up to you tho. It's just that you can't chrome plate an alloy wheel as if you did it would melt in the process af the chrome plating due to the extreme heat.

Some people have mags they really like and can't buy anymore and if they have an accident then all 4 have to be replaced etc etc so at least the pewter finshing method can be used and save you a load of hassle and money.

Even if you buy those standard silver alloy wheels that everyone had before the chrome became popular again, you can have them chromed using the pewter method.

31st March 2004 - 10:24 PM  Reply  Quote

Yes bud you can. OK just say for instance you have a chrome alloy wheel and it's looking a bit worst for wear. What they do is dip it in a special acid solution to strip off what ever finish was on the wheel, wether it be chrome, plain old paint etc etc. This takes off something like .14 or a micron off the wheel. If it has bad gouges in it they then fill it up with alloy again, kind of like when you solder something. The they put the pewter finish on of your choice, wether it be the same finish as you originally had or you want something totally different. You original wheel might have been chrome but you might want to change it to gold chrome. Like I said it can be done it all depends on what you want.

I might contact one of these places and see if they will let me take some pictures of the whole process and I will post them up in the technical section with a bit of a speal as to the whole process.

I just couldn't beleive for the amount of chrome alloy wheels out there on the market that if you damaged them you just had to throw them away. So I just looked into it a bit further and this is what I found out. I knew someone had to have something available for this situation.

31st March 2004 - 10:58 PM  Reply  Quote

yeh that could probly be done but might not look to good

11th May 2004 - 02:34 AM  Reply  Quote