I scratched up my wheels in a mud pit and the scratches are white, like paint scratches. The local autobody shop says the wheels are only clear coated on the inner surfaces and that the outer surface is just polished aluminum. This doesn't make sense to me, as aluminum tarnishes, and these wheels don't.

Does anyone know if these wheels are clear coated? If they are, painting over them will fix my scratch problem.

 

Why yes, Mike, they are! Thank you for asking.




I just got them repaired...the body shop wet sanded the wheels and painted them over with a new coat of clear. They look fantastic. In fact my only problem is that the two wheels that I scratched to hell now look better than the two wheels I didn't. Oh well....gotta do them all now.

 

the face of the wheel is clear coated, the sides of the spokes are painted silver and clearcoated. My wheels where all scratched up when i baught them from some Joe at the dealer using steel wool on them. A quick shot of clear coat from a can made them look great. Now this time i too went into a mud puddle and scratched the living frick out them... so i'll prolly be wet sanding them and clear coating them myself in the garage with a rattle can. even if it doesn't come out body shop quality, its clear coat on aluminum on a wheel and nobody will ever notice... if it where the body then it'd be a different story as my jeep is black and shows everything. Lastly, i'm thinking about wet sanding all the wheels, them painting them etching primer and painting them with line-x to make them the color i want, and much more durable... if i do ever get around to it, i'll post pics for sure.

 

I'm sure they'll look great. Mine look phenomenal. On the worst wheel, some of the scratches were too deep to fix, but the clearcoat covered even those so well that you have to actively look for them to see them.

 

instead of clearcoating them can't you just blast them with a fine grit sandblasting them leave them raw?

That is what I was thinking of doing

 

Sure, but that would change the finish and make it hard to clean. I remember those rough finished wheels in the 90s. Man, did I loathe them...