Has anybody ever completely polished a wheel that wasn't polished before? I'm not talking about just a lip. What were the results? Was it clearcoated? Any info would be great. pricing too.

 

I know a few people that have done it. It's very difficult. Ussually, painted wheels are not the smoothest of surfaces, so it's going to take quite a bit of time to get things smooth before you can even think about polishing anything. As for cost, I have no idea what someone would charge.

 

Can you show me a photo of the wheel? What is it made of?

 

I've known several folks to do this on motorcycle wheels and I once had a set of wheels polished on a Vette.

If you do it yourself expect it to take forever and expect it to ruin your elbows, hands, wrists, and to induce some mild arthritis. I'm not kidding...doing this work by hand is a massively painful undertaking.

And IMHO it never comes out very well. You really need a machine to do the work so it looks "new". More often than note though you are left with an unnerving amount of swirls.

You really need a wheel specialist who has been polishing for many years. And it won't be cheap.

And yes you will definitely need to clearcoat the finished product otherwise it is an absolute waste of time.

In the long run you are better off spending that money on new wheels, and then sell your old ones to cut the cost down.

Call some of your local chroming shops and see if they do polishing work. Then ask then what it would cost to polish and clearcoat a single wheel. That'll give you some numbers to work off of.

Cheers,
-Smoky