We’re booked in this coming week with a company called Top Marques in Stoke who refurbish wheels. We went to them on the recommendation of a friend who hadn’t had work done there but had seen good things on the internet forums. We’ve had a look ourselves and most people have good things to say, albeit most posts are from a few years ago.
Now we went to see our paint sprayer last week and were telling him about the plans for the wheels and he says they’re not very good. He knows the guy there and had some wheels for his Mini done as a return favour for some bodywork he did and he wasn’t very pleased with the results. He said a few of his customers have also had wheels refurbed there and didn’t think they were much good.
Does anyone have any recent experience of having work done there? I dont want to go spending a lot of money and not get the results I’m hoping for. I can’t really think of a great many places locally who do wheel work.
If you don’t mind a drive to Chester, these guys are the best!! :: http://www.thewheelspecialist.co.uk/
Just had a look at their website, seem pretty good. To be honest I reckon their Burton/Derby branch might be closer for us, plus they do a classic Merc courtesy car - I’m easily pursuaded by shiny old cars lol!
I’ll probably give them a call tomorrow 
Claire,
I bought my Mk3 used and the seller said that he had had the the wheels refinished. They did look good however when I had new tyres fitted the “pop” of the new tyre reseating flicked off some paint from the edges of two rims. After a year these areas resulted in air leak which I had to seal with spray-in sealer. My guess is that the re finisher paid little attention to cleaning and smoothing the edge of the wheel before respraying.
The cost of another refinishing was going to be £75 per wheel so I bought four new 17" Alutec wheels from Tyremen at £95 each. I might sell the four 10 spoke Mazda wheels “as is” for someone else to refurbish.
Ian