I intend refurbising the alloy’s on my Mk2 soon.
I read somewhere on the forum about finishing them with wax instead of laquer.
Any idea, what type of wax… can I get it from Halfords ?
Cheers
Summer use only - I’d be ok with wax.
All year - laquer, then wax.
In fact, I’d probably laquer them anyway.
Wax = wax polish???
I had some bare polished alloys for years. I tried waxing half of them (drivers side only) and leaving the others bare and there was no difference. I used a couple of types of “car polish” type wax then tried some mould release wax (wax is wax, right?) I had kicking about - all of it did nothing, but was more effort than doing nothing.
My current front wheels have machined then laquered rims, and they look shiny all the time with no effort at all required to look after them.
I suspect the sort of people who wax their wheels aren’t the same sort of people who drive all year round and only wash their cars once a month.
The problem with lacquer on refurbished wheels is that it isn’t particularly hard, and will chip easily. Unlike paint, you won’t see this chipping. The first you see of it is when a big lunk of lacquer falls off revealing crusty aluminium.
Generally, the advice for polished metal wheels is not to lacquer them, and just accept they are more maintenance intensive.
If painting the wheels, depends largely on the painting process if there is an additional coat of lacquer, or whether its simply mixed with the paint, or powdercoat is used.
Thanks for replies.
I refurbished the wheels last year, spending the best part of two weeks bringing the alloys up to a good finish and then spraying them with a tin of laquer purchased from Halfords. I even polished the wheels with a good polish everytime I washed the car, usually once a week.
Following a couple of Club runs in December and January, after washing all the mud, grit and c…p off I noticed the laquer was chipping of in places leaving the wheels looking “patchy”.
I am going to try again, won’t be such hard work this time around ( wheels were in a terrible state when I bought the car ). I intend polishing the wheels this time and not bother with the laquer.
Sorry for being a numpty…did not realise wax = wax…thought it was something different. ??
Jim Lowrie
Best use a hard wax. The Muk Off stuff sold in Halfords etc seems to be neither use nor ornament.
I use poorboys wheel sealent. Seems to work well at keeping the wheels in good condition especially over winter. Makes brake dust removal much easier. Its not as good as the advert states but good never the less. Heres a link to it on ebay but I’m sure you can buy it from any good car detailing specialist.