Hello all,

Two days ago I went to a car wash. It was the kind without brushes and uses only water jets. The car wash was terrible and the car was still dirty. Never used that wash before at this gas station.

The car wash has one of those little grooves you have to drive your wheel in I guess so it knows where your car is during the wash. There was no real guide just a thing you drive into with your wheel. I felt the tire kinda hit it and I guess it popped over in the correct spot. It scratched both wheels. There is a sign saying they aren’t responsible for any damage, but that doesn’t mean a lawyer could not make them pay for repairs. I have driven into these washes plenty of times, but most times someone is guiding you so the car goes in straight.

Is there any point in trying to sue, or is it pointless to try? One big scrape on the front wheel and one smaller scrape on the back wheel. Both on the drivers side. FYI I attempted to speak to the employee that clearly English was not his first language about how I could reach the owner/manager about the damage. This person “supervisor” immediately said “it’s your fought whatever happened. FYI.

You should be able to get both wheels refinished/repaired for around $100 each. I found a guy who comes to various car dealers in my hometown on a regular basis. I met him and he refinished a wheel on a VW R32 for $85. It had minor curb rash. When he finished you could not tell where it was damaged.

Typically those guides have plastic guards on them to prevent damage to the wheels. If not, it would cause damage to every wheel that went through. Sorry to hear about the damage. I scraped my own wheel the other day like an idiot.

Is this for a SL?

SL wheels new from dealer I was quoted $1500 + 30 days to arrive from Germany.

If they are SL wheels, you might consider an insurance claim. If they offer you the cash, then take a checks and investigate getting them refinished. I would LOVE to know a place that refurbs SL wheels for $85, can someone please share? My quotes were $250 and up...

I have the 19x8.5 & 19x9.5 rear wheels, which I am soon replacing with aftermarket Enkei PF01 18x9.

David

I am going to go back there in an hour to grab a pic to see if the plastic part you mention is there. After that I am going to have the wheels checked.

Not factory SL wheels. When I checked the price of a factory spoke wheel from MB when mine cracked they quoted me $1,700 for one wheel I think. Can’t remember. Not sure if I would take a chance on my insurance rates rising from filing a claim. Worth investigating.

I used to own a large gas station with a car wash. We had so many people claim they got their wheels scratched going through. My car wash had one track and had a plastic bumper along the whole rail to avoid rim/wheel/tire damage. So funny when someone would say the passenger side wheel got scratched going through the wash and I only had a track on the drivers side with the plastic bumper. I would be like "so you are saying your passenger wheel got scratched? Can you show me how that is possible when we only have a track on the drivers side". Their expression was priceless.

https://www.dentwizard.com/exterior-...el-repair.aspx

Go here and see real world prices on brand new, genuine MB and/or AMG wheels: alloywheelsdirect.net

I will check them out. I think there is a place not far from me that also does it. I love my after market wheels, so I for sure will have them repaired.

You definitely need to shop around. I’ve seen places quote $300.00 to repair & refinish a curbed wheel, while some of these mobile guys do the same quality work for $100.00.

Check this out

https://mbworld.org/forums/w212-amg/...sh-repair.html

I would love to find someone local who could do good work on my front wheels…the previous owner sadly neglected them and they have stains, etc from brake dust all over them. The AMG 19” wheels have that combo polished/painted look that I don’t want to just paint over. Back in Portland there was a wheel restoration guy (Skip at Wheelwerks) that did amazing work…bunch of the Porsche guys went to him for any wheel work…may give him a jingle to see if I can send my wheels to him…he may be an option for anyone looking to restore or repair wheels instead of buying new.

We have a place in Ventura County called Wheels Concepts that I have used to repair bent/damaged wheels as well as polishing rims for the BMW M Roadster I used to own. The guys who do on site refinishing are cheaper, but do not generally do as good of a job since they do not remove the wheel and tire. They do a quick fix that looks better, but in my case I did not find the quality of the repair up to my standards. I bought a set of factory style wheels from a forum member for my BMW that went to Wheels Concepts for refinishing and they found two of the rims were bent and needed extra work to make them right. Better to pay a little more and get the job done right.