Im trying to fix up my alloy rims, 2 of them have lost their clearcoat, and the surface is rough, and stained black in the cracks.
Whats the best way of dealing with this situation? Covering up the alloy wheels with hubcaps is a little extreme. It really upsets me that these werent taken care of before getting the car. Regular alloy wheel cleaner dosen't really work.

 

I don't now about the clear coat problem, but I there's this acid based wheel cleaner that supposed to be safe for clear coat alloy wheels. I used it with a metal brush to get the grimy stuff on that area behind the spokes where it always collects. You can try it in a small spot and see if it works (I don't think the metal brush caused any scratches). But make sure you rinse that stuff off!

 

That's some bad advice. Yes, a wire brush will scratch clear coated wheels. Never use stuff that's not safe for a surface on the surface that it's not safe to use on. Duh.

Post pix. It sounds like your best option is to repaint.

 

I used an acid on my RD1 wheels and they looked great.

 

My RD1 wheels had the same problem, so I sanded down all the clear coat and grime until they were shiny again. I painted them black with VHT wheel paint. They came out pretty good, I just have to touch them up after each winter. It took me quite a while to sand them down, but it cost less than $40 to redo them.

P.S. Make sure, before you paint, that you use the VHT etching primer on the wheels first.

 

I should have been clearer. I wasn't talking about the front of the wheel, where the spokes are. I was talking about on the inside, around the rim, behind the spokes, where I don't think any clear coat is in the first place. If I remember correctly, a tire guy once told me that there's no clear coat there and that's why the grime is so hard to get off. Anyway, that stuff gets so embedded on the inside of the rim, whatever is done is probably going to ruin the any clear coat that may be there. But to be safe, I'd try the least harshest methods I first! I don't recall ever seeing scratch marks from the brush on the inside of my rims -- but maybe I didn't look hard enough.

As an added thought, one should be careful before trying any harsh methods to remove really tough grime from the wheels for another reason. I don't know this for sure, but I was thinking that maybe getting rid of all that grime could make your wheels out of balance if they were balanced with all that crap on them in the first place. I don't know how much the grime affects the wheel's balance. It shouldn't be much because the lead weights are probably much more dense then the grime. So I could be worried about this for nothing. But if there is a lot of grime that has to be removed, with all that rubbing and sanding it may take to get it off, it might make sense to get the wheels rebalanced just to be sure, especially if there are new tires on there. Just a thought.

 

find a paint and body place that would blast your wheels. I mean sandblast the hell out of them, front and back. duplicolor wheel paint after that. new look for your rims for around $150.00. here is what i did with my badly curb rashed lead weights,lol.

http://www.rdtiburon.com/index.php?showtopic=28355&hl=