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So my new (to me) C5 has the polished aluminum wheels....I was detailing the car today and the best way to describe the wheels is they seem to be "cloudy" with maybe some water spots, what would you guys recommend to clean them....I'm guessing that they are clear coated and the cloudiness may be in that..... any suggestions would be appreciated.
Also got the pic striping off today....huge difference...
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If that product doesn't make them look better, about the only other thing you can do is have the clear removed, re-polish the wheels, and then re-clear the wheels. They'll look great after that.
Ok, went out to the garage to try a couple things....the Scratch X actually helped a lot but not perfect so decided to try the process I used on my Model A that had a ton of orange peel and water spots from when my father-in-law painted it in the 70's, no clear coat, straight lacquer.
What I did on the A was wet sand (by hand) with 2000 grit sand paper and 3M Advanced Auto Rubbing Compound, then hit it with the same rubbing compound with just a rag, then applied Scratch X to that, two times and finished it off with a Mothers Carnuba Wax....the paint job on the A looks like it was applied yesterday.
So tried the same process on the wheels without the sand paper, rubbing compound, Scratch X twice and finish with the wax....the couple spokes I did look great, maybe not like new but close....
So that will be my project, will probably take a couple hours per wheel to do it right but should be worth it when all done......thanks for the direction on where to start.
True on all fronts. OP wasn't 100% sure he had clear coat. Nabcoinc, what kind of wheels do you have? Either a name or a picture might help both you and us out. I'd also guess that if you do have clear coated wheels, you would not use the coarser grits, rather the 1500 or higher grits to polish the clear coat. That's how they do it on the body panels. And you alluded to that way was how you were proceeding in post #5. Sure hope you get it the way you'd like it.
Ok guys, using the process I outlined in post #5 I spent about 2 hours and 10 minutes on the first wheel, here is kind of before and after, not the same wheel but the one that I worked on and another that I did not, the one I worked on looked just like this before I started.....came out pretty good, can use a little more buffing but looks 100 times better.