I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: Wheel refurbishment
Hiya.
I have just returned from a tyre place who was putting two new Kumho’s on the front with some new information. They tell me the rear wheels have run flats on them, something I new though didn’t do myself, and I didn’t know this was a problem for cars without TPMS.
Okay, so four new Kumho’s then? Yes, but also they said my wheels were very corroded and that the wheel balancing weights fell off with the loose paint they were attached to. The wheels were “improved” before I bought the car two years, ago, but i’m inclined to believe they just lightly cleaned and resprayed them (probably with the tyres on, and on the car). So they don’t look too bad to me, but maybe they’re not so good past what’s immediately visible.
So now i’m looking at another £400 ish, on top of the £380 for 4 new Kumho’s…
Question: Can wheels be too corroded from a functional/non-aesthetic way? Can i get away with just throwing new tyres on them and ignoring the refurb? Sure, money aside it’d be nice to have 4 shiny new wheels, but it wasn’t something i was expecting, and it’s being MOT’d on thursday, and it’s making a noise like it may need a new wheel bearing or two…
Trying to hold onto it, but mounting costs aren’t helping convince the wife that we shouldn’t go back to being a one car household…
If the surface of the wheels is too bad - then yes - the wheel weights will not stay attached.
Also - if the sealing surface to the tyre is corroded - you may get air leaks where the surface has not sealed correctly.
You could save some funding and diy the wheel sanding / painting if you wanted too.
Yes - powder coating is quicker and potentially looks better but diy painting is doable.
A good tyre fitter will try to rub down the wheels and reseal the tyres, though, so it might be worth @nuoptik getting a second opinion as that will only cost their time.
Wheels are very frequently like this.
It is a requirement that run flat tyres require TPM else you don’t know you have a puncture. It wouldn’t be the first car ever to have run flats and no working pressure monitoring.
Having to clean the bead area because of corrosion is very common, you just nead a clean surface for the tyre to seal. Many leaks occur when the paint starts to lift and the air goes between the rim and the paint.
Paint lifting or not being there is so common on older Alloys. You just have to wire brush away to a solid surface. I have rotary wire brush on the end of a drill.
When I bought my 20 year old MK2 4 years ago I thought the wheels needed a good clean as looked like years of ground in break dust. You can see these pics as my car was featured in the June 2021 STHT. Alas no, the wheels were badly corroded. They looked bloody awful. I had all 4 professionally done. This before I had all the other corrosion attended to and there was a lot!!. They transform the look of the car and you know that they are straight and not cracked and will seal well. Alloy wheels are notorious on any car to seal correctly no matter what they look like.
