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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Road Salt Wheel Damage


Stewart10

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After the snow and ice of late last year I fear my wheels and also my exhaust are not looking half as good as they were before. The wheels particularly (as they are bordering on chrome finish) are looking decidedly dull and I can feel that they are rough to touch and I cannot seem to get them anywhere near back how they were. In an ideal world I would cover the car up til March but it is my only vehicle so I don't really have a choice but to go out in the Winter.

 

Does anyone have any tips to get the wheels back how they were please? Can they be hight polished clean or does somebody know some "miracle" product that is gonna do it for me?

 

Thanks in advance...

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Autosol is a slightly harsher product than the meguiars NXT, so i would try the NXT first. Its also very important the wheels are also protected at this time of year, some thing like poorboys wheels sealant will do the job well. But i would still advise regular washing of the wheels to rinse the salt off them, salt is nasty stuff especially if your wheels already have any pitting in them.

 

Besides wheels, paintwork is equally very important to be looking after. This is exactly why i am doing a very good offer on my Protection Detail at the moment, and is proving very popular (see link in sig)

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How bad is the damage ? post a pic if you can, if the marks are very shallow you can sand them back working down from rough flatting paper to quite fine and then use polish.

 

If their laquered then the only real proper fix is to refurb the whole wheel as you'll have broken through the laquer

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If you have to drive in the winter get a set of unblingy wheels to swap over to while all the salt, grit, snow etc is happening.

 

O/E spec would do the job and their easily refurbed as well

 

+1 on the stock wheels while the roads/weather are/is in a sorry state.

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How bad is the damage ? post a pic if you can, if the marks are very shallow you can sand them back working down from rough flatting paper to quite fine and then use polish.

 

If their laquered then the only real proper fix is to refurb the whole wheel as you'll have broken through the laquer

 

The damage wouldn't be that bad at any other time of the year, but it's got under the lacquer and now looks nasty. I've already had the wheels refurbed once, and so can't be done again. They are diamond cut too. I may just pop down to my local body shop place, and see if they can suggest something.

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The damage wouldn't be that bad at any other time of the year, but it's got under the lacquer and now looks nasty. I've already had the wheels refurbed once, and so can't be done again. They are diamond cut too. I may just pop down to my local body shop place, and see if they can suggest something.

 

Can you not bodge it yourself with some sandpaper, filler and paint?

 

Obviously depending on the type/colour/finish of the wheel.

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Can you not bodge it yourself with some sandpaper, filler and paint?

 

Obviously depending on the type/colour/finish of the wheel.

 

His wheels have diamond cut faces so flatting them back and using filler would look horrific.

 

Check Andrews garage pics

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Heh, you think that's bad? My driveway made of salt. Worst place for a car to sit IMO. My wheels look dreadful now and even washing it daily wouldn't cure the issue. :(

 

Need to try some proper products to get them back to perfection. Damn chrome.

 

Cement or tarmac would have been cheaper than buying tonnes of salt...

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I had the same problem last year and it takes ages with just metal polish on a rag (took me about half an hour to get an area 10cm clean), so I'd suggest instead of using a rag use a very fine sandpaper (i.e. something around 1500-2000 grit) soaked in soapy water, and use that with metal polish to take most of the corrosion off, then to polish out those polishing marks go over it with metal polish on a rag which will be a lot easier and take them all out. This will of course only work on an un-lacquered wheel.

 

Autosol is still quite a good product for initial cleaning, Megs NXT Metal Polysh is also really good on it's own to take out the polishing marks. If you spend a bit more then you can get Belgom Alu which is my second choice of metal polish after Megs.

 

As someone else said, Poorboys Wheel Sealant is your friend after you've got them clean, although you will need to wash (soapy water is fine) once a week or so and reapply the sealant as it will easily be removed with the roads as they are at the mo, and with brake dust etc

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