[H] hiya all. loving the car, had it 4 days now. i NEED the wheels refurbing in the same finish as when new. im in doncaster.
thanks in advance guys, great site
Where these highly polished or chrome plated? the 10th anniversary model was when I first started to take notice these cars.
yep thats right. “highly-polished alloy wheels”
Has the alloy corroded?
yes it has, or appears to have. ive been told that it was a “re-call” from maxda, but apparently the guy who had the car was not that bothered wierd eh?
My car is on its 3rd set of alloys, which where all replaced under Mazda warrenty. However, the set that are on now didn’t start corroding until after a year, so I’ve still got them on. They are in desparate need of refurbishment.
I think you will find it difficult to find somewhere that will do them, that has seemed to be the situation in the past. I know of someone who did a DIY job on his, and they looked pretty good - basically polishing them back up again.
Others have suggested that power coating them gives a near-enough finish, but I haven’t seen any examples of this.
To get the corrosion out will leave a depression in the surface of the wheel, and then prove very difficult to polish. The problem I suspect with wheels that are polished all over is keeping the corrosion at bay by continually polishing them at least once a week. Mine are BBS wheels with only the outer rim polished and I have some corrosion marks still in as they were too deep to remove. I am hoping to get a spare set this summer so that I can get four good ones out of eight wheels. There is some method of refilling dug out corroded parts of the wheel with a blow torch and alloy rods. It works but the wheel and the filler rods are not the same colour when polished up, better than the corrosion but still noticeable. 
Same problem with my V-Spec 2 polished alloys. Was quoted £400 to re-polish. They are also lacquered but so far no one I’ve heard of will guarantee the new lacquer for any period of time.
So, if you have them re-furbed then be prepared to polish and wax them at least once a month.