My 2 cents... I'd be very wary of chroming your wheels. Although I know there are many chromed, aluminum wheels out there, hydrogen embrittlement if a fact and in my 20+ years experience in the industry, not worth it. If you don't push your car (yeah right, it's a Z!), then it may be OK. Cosmetically, typical life expectancy of an OE quality rechroming job is 3-4 years before bubbling of the chrome occurs. I am not aware of any facilities that can provide that level of re-chroming. Not saying they don't exist, I'm just not aware of them as the OE standards and requirements are extreme (which is why so few wheel mfg's actually supply wheels to the OE's).

If it were me, I'd try using some of the wheel repair/restoration shops recommended by the others. If no suitable repair, I'd have the affected portions polished and then powdercoated with clear to ease maintenance.

Good luck whichever way you go!

 

Thanks again for all the good advice in this thread

 

Nobody in SoCal can annodize but the place I gave you info for, polished and fixed a bend in My lip for $60 like 1 year ago and they showed me polished Alum rims that were freshly coated and waiting for the owner to pick up and some that were done a year earlier on a vehicle at the shop and all looked great.

TRUST ME, I had just the polish done and it looked great until the first wash, anything that touches them will scratch them and anything including water will stain them. WRS in Santa Ana 714-973-1741 WILL CLEARCOAT AND IT WILL ADHERE AND LOOK WONDERFUL. Just got off the p0hone with them. Here is a pic of what a non clearcoated Challenge will look like with in 6 months, no matter how well you care for it. Call WRS and save yourseldf the heart ache.

Before After

 

For such expensive wheels volks sure are easy to F up. Not to say anything about the quality or styling, rays makes a damn nice wheel ( I have rays myself) but I cannot believe that some window spray residue left over on a drying towel can completely screw up the coat on a set of wheels... that just seems off to me

 

sorta like how a simple drop of bird dump will f up a paint job on a porsche or lambo.

its all in the chemicals..

u'd think with Mike's PhD he'd make some solution to prevent all of this! hehe.

 

Wow I wish you luck with your wheels

 

Well first of all, I can't see the difference in the after pic. Looks ok to me. But I know that bare aluminum will be a PITA because I am well aware of the aluminum chemistry... plus my dad has had porsches with polished aluminum wheels back in the day, and he said the same **** happened to his rims... spray a chemical, get spots...

But I just heard from someone that status may be able to get the anodization done.

Your reference to WRS sounds good on paper, but I'd be curious to see how the clearcoat comes out. Since you have not had this done yet, I don't know if I'm ready to bite the bullet with clearcoating... until someone else goes first

I will be looking into this!

 

aaaaaaaahhhhhh.... thats a tough cookie right there...
oh wait, the car wash is paying for it! niiiocce.

 

The first pic has a brilliant mirror finish and the 2nd pic is very dull and hazy with barely any reflection at all. Look at the valve stem cap reflection on the 2nd pic and notice the crappy looking reflection on the rim. TRUST ME, when it was anodized and for the first month after polish, it was literally like a mirror, absoloutely beautiful. I have the blue magic polish and it worked good in the begining but it only does so much.

Let me know if you get it anodized. As long as they use the same "Brite Dip" that Rays uses it will match pefectly. Otherwise, different anodize or Clearcoat will not match the other Factory anodized rims perfectly, but it will look 100 times better than with no coat at all.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

I'm still trying to get over the fact that Mike let someone else wash his car!

 

There's a first and last time for everything I guess

 

car wash is contagious to aftermarket rims

 

just wanted to post my experience with WRS in Santa Ana

i had them repair a cracked wheel once (not my Volks) and they did a horrible job. they actually made me pay extra to make the wheel "true", basically a perfectly round barrel and it was not even close. i brought it back and they said to put the wheel in the rear and you wont notice.

my a5s you wont notice.......

 

this makes no sense.



mike, what'd you end up doing?