Shining up dull Premium wheels?

[Jeff-NoVA]

Long story short, after a terrible experience having tires installed at my local Ford dealer I ended up with scratched wheels that they eventually repaired (I basically had to threaten legal action to get them to honor their promise to repair the wheels).

Their wheel guy did a pretty half-assed job and while he got rid of the scratches he did not leave the wheels with the same level of factory shine on the unpainted metallic parts.

Can anyone suggest a product and a method to shine up the metal again? It’s a little hard to see from the attached photo but the unpainted face of the wheel definitely appears duller than it previously did.

I own both a random orbital polisher and a drill, so I am happy to employ either of those tools so long as they allow me to polish the wheel without damaging the painted areas.

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[HuntingPudel]

It looks like they polished the texture off of the wheels. There are companies that specialize in diamond-turning the wheels to have that textured shiny look to them like factory. Alternatively, you could use a metal polish to get a chrome-like shine on them and clear coat the wheels. A good clear coat is necessary with either procedure to keep the aluminum from going dull again.

 

[Jeff-NoVA]

It looks like they polished the texture off of the wheels. There are companies that specialize in diamond-turning the wheels to have that textured shiny look to them like factory. Alternatively, you could use a metal polish to get a chrome-like shine on them and clear coat the wheels. A good clear coat is necessary with either procedure to keep the aluminum from going dull again.

Interesting, that does seem like a good explanation of what happened. I will have to see if there's an outfit around me (Northern VA) that does such work, and whether it's economically worthwhile. If it's going to cost a few hundred I might just get them powder coated instead. Damn dealer; this has been a complete hassle.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Interesting, that does seem like a good explanation of what happened. I will have to see if there's an outfit around me (Northern VA) that does such work, and whether it's economically worthwhile. If it's going to cost a few hundred I might just get them powder coated instead. Damn dealer; this has been a complete hassle.

Or you could just get yourself a buffing wheel and some compound and spray on a good clear coat...

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