Alloy Wheel fault

[Guest]

Well, I happened to look at my wheels yesterday to find two had developed a fault, not good for a car less than two years old. A visit to Lexus Leicester will be happening especially as according to the service history on Lexus Link they repaired these exact wheels a few months before I bought it.

[cdmaskell]

Was this a inferior previous repair?  These wheels have to correctly prepared, etched, coated and heat treated Etc. 

[peniole]

Looks like a poor repair job to me. Had this happen to a repaired wheel after I sadly let a moron mount new tyres and he damaged it. The repair job, paid by the tyre shop, initially looked good but barely lasted a year when big flakes like that started to come off.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, cdmaskell said:

Was this a inferior previous repair?  These wheels have to correctly prepared, etched, coated and heat treated Etc. 

I assume it was, I knew nothing about the wheels being repaired when I bought the car however when I registered the car on Lexus Link the service history showed both NSF& NSR as being repaired by Lexus Leicester last August along with UCC??. I have spoken to them on the phone and despite twice promising to call back they haven’t, I will try again tomorrow. I bought the car end of November 

[EVANGELION]

Dont go to Inchcape Lexus like Nottingham, Derby and Leicester,  poor services 

their repair services is using smart repair from local guy  which is not standard repair

they wont use high quality paint work and repair

[SH20]

The word refurbished is often quoted with alloy wheels.  Mobile wheel repair services or smart repair as quoted by EVA which dealers are known to use cannot refurbish a wheel in the truest sense as they don't powder coat the stripped down rim, they merely repair the affected area and repaint and lacquer the wheel. They cannot replicate the oven element of a refurbished wheel if they are a mobile service. 

Refurbished is when the wheel has the tyre and valve removed and all the surface coatings removed completely in an acid based bath literally down to the base alloy.   The damaged area is then repaired before the process of dry powder coating the rim which is baked in an oven at high temperature and liquifies the powder coating into the final hard coating which then has a lacquer coat applied to seal the whole wheel.   That's why they look brand new if done properly.   Mobile services are cheaper per wheel but not that much compared to  powder coating.  Typically a set of four  GS450h alloys I had done cost £280 incl vat and they looked like new rims when finished including the rebalancing of the wheel as all the weights were previously removed.     Your photo looks like a breach of the lacquer coat which exposed the unprotected colour coat of the rim. 

[beyond the blue]

1 hour ago, SH20 said:

The word refurbished is often quoted with alloy wheels.  Mobile wheel repair services or smart repair as quoted by EVA which dealers are known to use cannot refurbish a wheel in the truest sense as they don't powder coat the stripped down rim, they merely repair the affected area and repaint and lacquer the wheel. They cannot replicate the oven element of a refurbished wheel if they are a mobile service. 

Refurbished is when the wheel has the tyre and valve removed and all the surface coatings removed completely in an acid based bath literally down to the base alloy.   The damaged area is then repaired before the process of dry powder coating the rim which is baked in an oven at high temperature and liquifies the powder coating into the final hard coating which then has a lacquer coat applied to seal the whole wheel.   That's why they look brand new if done properly.   Mobile services are cheaper per wheel but not that much compared to  powder coating.  Typically a set of four  GS450h alloys I had done cost £280 incl vat and they looked like new rims when finished including the rebalancing of the wheel as all the weights were previously removed.     Your photo looks like a breach of the lacquer coat which exposed the unprotected colour coat of the rim. 

Could l just add a little to the above having had a Powder Coating plant as part of my Wrought Iron business (now retired). There are 2 types of powder, Epoxy, cheaper and more suited for indoor use and Polyester, dearer but more suited to outdoor use. We used to re-powder wheels for friends only as it was a pain in the bum. Epoxy powder if left un- lacquered outdoors, will loose it's shine within a couple of days, where Polyester won't. Obviously the best finish is Polyester lacquered, but to save money we have seen others use Epoxy.

[peniole]

Thank you Neil. I've learned something interesting and new to me.