TTAC Commentator WaftableTorque writes:
I’m driving a 2002 Lexus LS430 with Ultra Luxury Package. It has OEM 17″ chrome rims, and one of the tires has an air leak. My mechanic diagnosed the problem as peeling chrome at the bead, causing an improper air seal. I asked to put a tube on it, but he refused because of the potential for overheating, and they weren’t designed for tubes anyway. He also commented during my seasonal rotation that the other 3 rims are doing the same thing, so they’ll all eventually develop leaks. He recommended getting 4 new rims.
Fortunately this car has a full-size spare, so I’m not in a hurry to replace the one rim. The chrome is peeling on a couple of the non-leaking ones near the lip where it’s been curbed by yours truly, but otherwise they look new.
I’m going to put my winter tires on aftermarket rims this fall, but want to keep the OEM rims for summer duty. My goal is tasteful understatement, so I want my car as close to stock as possible.
My question is: can a reputable wheel shop fix these rims?
Sajeev Answers:
Since you’re the dude who confirmed what we all assumed, telling us that Ford CEO Alan Mulally is a connoisseur of LS430s with the Ultra Luxury Package (LINK: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/ask-the-best-and-brightest-is-that-a-lexus-in-the-jet-gate-video/), I suspect your intentions to keep it stock are honest. And why not? You’re certainly in good company.
If my experiences with OEM chrome plating are any example, your problem is far from uncommon. And the aftermarket, if researched properly, does an excellent job re-chroming…anything. The problem is cost: a used set of (hopefully) peel free wheels are cheaper. But that’s hit or miss, so I’d recommend getting the stock wheels re-chromed. Local chrome shops, harder to find these days due to tightening environmental regulations, can make anything have a brilliant and durable chrome finish.
So do your homework. Check out multiple shops, see who does high-end restoration work. My folks had a set of rare Concinnity triangular bathroom fixtures in need of fresh plating, and only a couple of shops were prepared to do the necessary surface preparation and brilliant refinishing needed. I found a shop known for aircraft-grade work, paid a King’s Ransom, waited 4 weeks, and was rewarded with a set of absolutely stunning bathroom fixtures straight from the 1980s school of striking modern design. Worth every penny!
While I doubt you’ll get the bang for the buck of our Concinnity fixtures, finding a proper Plater for your wheels will net you a lifetime of happy motoring. Best of luck with that.
Send your queries to mehta@ttac.com
We have a somewhat similar problem on our 2005 Saab 9-5 Arc wagon. It has the optional Aero 17″ five-spoke wheels. One of them was slightly bent at some point in the last year. It’s not a big problem, but it does make the ride feel a little wobbly sometimes.
Wow I would find it hard to swallow the cost. I’d end up with two tasteful sets of aftermarket wheels. Would you accept the non chrome alloys? They might be more durable, but not “Ultra Luxury.”
There are a bunch of companies which specialize in straightening and refinishing alloy wheels. I haven’t had occasion to use their services, but they are certainly out there.
Here is one example:
http://www.rimpro.com/index.html
Have you tried a can of the SLIME tire sealant?, or two?
Jeez, one more example of expensive high end cars with lots of doodads and questionable add-ons = ownership headache. +1 for SLIME — works great without the tar-like mess of traditional tire sealants. Worth a try for $5.
I think non-chrome OEMs are your best bet. You could offer a wheel swap for someone wanting the bling
Maybe rather than rechroming you could get the plating stripped and have them painted instead. Silver wheels look less garish than chrome anyway (in my opinion).
+2 for Slime.
I had an 88 Fiero whose rim was not seating well. An application of Slime fixed it.
I once had a big pothole bend the rim of my daily driver. I’m sure it’s only coincidence that my ride was the “Ultimate Edition” of it’s model line (Grand Marquis). At any rate, I took the wheel to a place here in Chicago that, for $150 and a day’s time, transformed the rim into a piece not distinguishable from new. Seriously. I take great care of my cars. My rims are in great shape, no brake dust or pitting. Still, they took my bent rim, with the scratches from the road, and transformed it to like new.
So if the Slime doesn’t work. Try a shop I think it was Wheels USA.
One more thought: If it’s just the bead, a shop might be able to take a wire wheel and just do some minimal prep work on the bead itself to make a more uniform lip.
Good luck with it.
Most, if not all, places that un-bend a rim do not have the ability to chrome plate. Been there, done that, with a chrome wheel that got bent before. Wound up finding a used replacement for much less than the price of fixing and re-plating.
Re-chroming is probably the best fix but it may be possible to wire brush/sand/grind the peeling chrome away enough to make a good seal.
Tubes are an adequate but imperfect fix. The problem is not so much heat but rather the rough surface (i.e. moulding marks) inside the tire. Tube-type tires were smooth inside but this requires an extra operation during manufacture and so they omit this on tubeless tires. I run a wire-wheeled car and a two-piece-rim truck which both need tubes. Every few years or so I get a flat which seems to be caused by the rough tubeless tire (can’t get tube-type any more) rubbing against the tube; no puncture through the tire is evident.
I wonder if there is a lubricant you can put between the tire inner and the tube which will all the two to slide over each other without abrading the tube to failure.
Be careful that the lubricant does not attack either rubber or you may have a failure.
Potential lubricants:
– big box of talcum powder;
– can of silicone spray or WD-40;
– bottle of Armor-All
I have no experience in doing any of this, these are just random musings that may or may not work – proceed and experiment at your own risk.
Would rechroming cause the wheels to become unbalanced in a way that is hard for the tire shop to compensate for? Straightening a wheel also seems a little dangerous (wouldn’t the metal be more fatigued where it was both bent and then rebent)? I may worry too much…
Another option instead of having them re-chromed, is to have them sandblasted and powder coated. While you may not get the perfect mirror finish that a good chroming will have, many powder coaters offer a finish that is almost chrome. It will also be far less expensive.
I thought I remembered seeing a dirt-simple fix once…
Tire was mounted on a tire machine.
Deflated.
Tire separated from rim at bead.
Instead of running a soapy foam brush around the bead and reinstalling the tire, the tire-man had a brush with a black mastic which he ran around the bead and then reinstalled the tire and inflated.
There was a little excess of the black gook squeezed out but this was wiped away with something like acetone.
Never used slime, or any of the materials designed to be introduced into the inter-rim-tire void, but I always wondered how one would keep the tire in balance with that stuff inside it…
If the stuff has a low enough viscosity, it will spin itself into balance as you drive.
Right, but is it eternally viscous, or does it “cure” and take a set at some point?
BTW, during all that spinning, does it ride-up the side-wall all the way up to the bead to seal it (seems kind of hard to believe)? Or must the tire be demounted and flipped around to get the material up to the bead (I would have thought these materials were only intended for punctures thru the tread)?
IIRC, it doesn’t set so much as it congeals. I think it does slowly ooze down to the bottom of the wheel if you let it sit for a few months, but spinning it around will redistribute the goop again. It does spread all over the inside of the tire and wheel, which is why tire installers hate the stuff.
My MIL’s Millenia chromed rims were a constant source of headache – I think a flat tire every 2 months on average. The problem was alleviated when my FIL had a totaled Millenia come through his shop with the same rims – just did a quick swap, no one was the wiser. Unfortunately, he did not swap the tires too and the hideous chinese no-name tires had to go after a month – you could hear the tread whine a mile away.
The new set of rims, for some reason, no problems in 2+ years. Finish is perfect still on them.
Sajeev – before and after pics of the fixtures?
Sorry, I didn’t even own a digi camera when I did that legwork. But man, I really miss those fixtures. And the modernist house they live in.
Gotcha. If you are a modernist fan, check out this guy’s blog: http://moderncapitaldc.com/ He also has links to stores with modernist furniture / fixtures.
He’s on my FB and Twitter feed. Much appreciated.
OEM rims and chroming are both so expensive that I’d at least look at some aftermarket rims. For less than the price of two OEM rims that I needed to replace on my Mazda6, I was able to get a full set of four aftermrket rims that look nicer, IMO. Check some sites and you might find some mroe tasteful rims for less. Not all rims are the garish bling that you see on cars driven by teenage gangsta’s or wannabes.
“My goal is tasteful understatement”
Chrome wheels and understatement are mutually exclusive.
Chrome wheels and tasteful are mutually exclusive. Just cut to the chase and get a set of these.
this was exactly what i was going to write. +1
I can’t stand chrome rims for the very reason that i like an understated look. chrome rims scream “look at me! look at me! aren’t I shiny!?” ugh.
Chrome is always a little more than understated, but it doesn’t have to be garish. There are plenty of aftermarket options that would probably be cheaper than re-chroming the factory wheels, and look close enough to stock that nobody would confuse you with a someone trying to import-tune a Lexus LS.
These for example are pretty tasteful, and I’d imagine you could replace the center cap and no one would know they aren’t stock.
I never got the appeal of those wheels with the huge lip between the edge of the spokes and the outside, they always looked cheap and tacky to me.
Slime and its ilk will work with wheels that don’t have pressure sensors. It’ll work with them too, but then your sensors won’t. BTW, be kind to your tire installer and let him know if a wheel on which he’s about to replace a tire contains sealant.
I had this problem with a mid-80s Honda V65 Magna. A few minutes with a drill-mounted wire brush on the bead seating groove took care of the problem.
Same problem on my 99 GS400 17″ OEM chrome rims. Shop ground the chrome off of the inner bead area and have not had a problem since.
bb
“Lexus” and “Ultra Luxury”… ha! That’s hilarious. Nice.
Oh wait, you were serious?
funnily enough, we have an LS430 with chrome rims (via sport suspension package, ironic as that name is on this car) that have the exact same problem. we got them repaired once, but they started peeling again. To fix the leak, we just took the car to a tire shop where they put sealer to fix it, and it is holding up fine.
“Fourth” the remove tire, wire-brush rim at bead, apply a bit of sealant, re-mount tire. Worked on my ’97 Camaro chromed aluminum wheels.
It looks like my mechanic put Slime on all the tires (it’s green right?), and the leak disappeared. I’m taking from the thread that this stuff holds up, and that’s good enough for me. I found a few web sites like finishlinewheels.com which sell OEM wheels, but since I’ll probably keep the car another 5-7 years it’s good to know I have some options.
Alloy wheels at first had no coating and got very dirty, corroded etc. Now, most alloy wheels are painted, either with clear coat over anodized alloy, or clear coat over (grey) paint. Or, they are chrome plated.
Problems continue. Any nick in the painted rims starts corroding. Moisture can’t dry out through the nick, and the corrosion spreads on the surface of the alloy, under the clear coat or paint. If this corrosion spreads around the outer edge of the rim, and under the bead, you end up with a leak. Sealants etc. can only do so much to fix this. The true solution is to have the rims refinished, which costs as much as new aftermarket rims.
Chromed alloy rims that are peeling are a lost cause. An expensive lost cause. You can’t sandblast the chrome off. Removing the unpeeled chrome without damaging the rim surface doesn’t happen. The chrome just does not conveniently all peel off at the same time. So if chromed alloy rims start peeling, as they will, costly replacement seems to be the only solution.
Just look at 10-25 year old cars and see what a mess the alloy rims are on many of them. These circumstances are a hidden cost to using alloy wheels on cars.
You can have the tires removed and do a DIY job on the painted ones yourself, but you won’t get a perfect result. Plasti-Kote makes a nice enamel spray clear coat.