VoyagerDude

Sorry if I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about. I've noticed some people (Buell?) have had their wheels "polished", ie if I understand correctly removed the silver paint and clear-coated them.

What is the purpose of this besides different look? The reason I ask is that with my C7 wheels it often happens that small rocks peel of nice chunks of wheel finish, so end up refinishing the whole wheel.

So I'm wondering if this can happen to polished wheel as well?

Your help and comments are appreciated.

MARK CUMMINS

I Have Had My Rims Polished On Several cars.When You get curb rash..Nicks..Scratches..you can have them polished out
Have You Ever seen a Chrome wheel 3/4 years old? Peeling !

Btw Mercedes Benz Has TSB Stating NOT to Chrome Plate ANY of Its Wheels...The TUV Does Not Approve it!

But Our Dealers Want to GROSS as Much as Possible on Every car they sell...They Dont care about The long Term of your wheels ..Its all about The Bottom Line $$$$

Buellwinkle

What does it cost to have the C7's polished and how much maintenance does it take to keep them polished? I'v had Harleys with lots of polished aluminum but if you didn't keep it polished every 2 months or so it starts looking pretty dull.

As for chrome, a good triple plate process (copper/nickel/chrome) will last a long time and is not subject to oxidation and chips. Chrome is a very hard coating unlike paint. The reason some people have problems is that if you compromise the plating with a curb rash it will start peeling at that point. I've had them done on MBs before and after 200K miles, no peeling or chipping.

VoyagerDude

What is "Crome Plate"?

how do you actually polish?

Buellwinkle

Polishing is a pre-step to plating. You strip the paint, sand out any imperfections and usually using a dye grinder with buffing cones and rouge you bring the aluminum to a bright finish.

To plate it, it's dipped in a plating tank with copper sulfate to put a copper coating. It's then polished again and replated until any imperfections are gone. Then it's dipped in a nickel plating tank and polished again. Then dipped into chroming tank and that's the final layer.

Outland

Chrome is applied via an electroplating process. First a part is polished the same way you would if you wanted to leave it polished. Then it goes into an acid bath with strips the surface metal and any contamination. THen a nickel strike, followed by a layer of copper, then another layer of nickel, and the the chrome is last. The whole operation(except the chrome) takes place in hot water that is heavily aerated and which contains disolved metals- corresponding to the type of layer you are adding. An electric charge(provided by the rack) is applied to the part that attracts the oppositely charged metals in solution. The chrome(chromic acid, IIRC) itself looks digusting...its like a stinky black coffee solution. Its hard to believe that something shiny can come out of that :-)

Its a real treat to see the whole operation from start to finish. BTW, Chrome doesn't hold up any better than paint in the climate youre in. It sure looks nice though. Aluminum is tricky to plate because of the persistent porosity present in most aluminum castings. You can put on more layers, but this tends to encourage the chrome to peel. Making a layer thicker will result in chrome burn or chrome buildup, niether of which you want. Buellwinkle posted a pick of a chromed C7 wheel, and I have to admit, it looks petty good chromed. Generally, I prefer the chrome on my bike, not on my car wheels

VoyagerDude

Thanks for all the great explanations.
I guess I would have to stick to refinishing the wheels every-so-often


I'm not a huge fan of cromed wheels, but Buell's looked nice.

It's odd how easy paint peels off these wheels.