jkirk1

Just looking for a quick fact check before I pull a bone headed move. It's hard to read due to a crease, but I believe my window sticker states factory polished aluminum wheels which was a $1295 option on my 2006 convertible. I want to clean up the wheels and I was going to spend the afternoon with my Mothers Powerball, polish, and a couple of beers. I have looked at the wheels and for the life of me can't tell if they are coated in any way. Has anyone out there polished on theirs and am I safe with this method? I would appreciate any advice or suggestions.

RicK T

They are clear coated. You need to use stripper to remove the clear before polishing.

Here are a couple old discussions for info:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...he-wheels.html

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...epolished.html

ForceFedC4

I've worked miracles on cast aluminum on my C4 I turned the stock TPI into a mirror. It takes some doing but wheels like the ones on the C6 are easy as pie. They have flat surfaces which make sand and or polishing into a breeze~!





Aircraft remover or something similar will take off factory clear-coat, which by the way will make a mirror polished wheel look like a satin finish because the clear kills the reflective nature of the raw aluminum.

There are many polishes you can use once the wheels are stripped that have the ability to polish so well it will look like chrome when it's done.

zephyr pro 40 aluminum polish is popular with my buddy that has to keep the mirror shine on a fleet of tow trucks.

Best of luck!

superfast

ForceFedC4- Wow, that's a mirror. Did you spray it with any type of coating after you're done or leave it "as is" to show the shine? Aluminum corrodes but it won't rust & the oxidation from the corrosion actually protect the bare aluminum.

HBsurfer

You are not polishing aluminum, you are polishing the clear coat. Treat the clear coated wheels like the rest of the paint on your car and they will look awesome. I clay barred my wheels, got swirls out with M105 and M205 and followed up with Rejex.

saplumr

Not really sure why GM calls them polished wheels because they're more like semi dull. Polishing will be of no help as mentioned.

HBsurfer

They are only dull because the clear coat is being treated like it is aluminum. Do paint correction on the clear coat (like the rest of the car) and they will look like chrome.

saplumr

I'm pretty good with taking care of paint and wheels but my car came with those wheels from the factory and they were dull from the jump and nothing I did made a difference. They suck! I ditched them within a month....along with a whole lot of other stuff.

saplumr

These wheels don't look factory, including the center caps.

HBsurfer

Stock wheels. 2007.

J.Moore

They look terrific...you have them looking like chrome, better looking than any aftermarket wheel on the market in my opinion.

C6 Snowboarder

look over a couple of You Tube vids..
lots of them there.

Gearhead Jim

During the 2005-2007 period, many people here referred to the wheels as "semi-polished", because they just weren't very shiny. That description would apply to the "polished" factory wheels on our 2006.

There were posts by people who took their "polished" wheels to a shop that specialized in wheel refinishing/polishing, and the end result wasn't any better than what came on the car originally. Others had much better results.

There was speculation that many (but not all) of the polished wheels used either a slightly different alloy, or a different casting technique; and couldn't be made shiny regardless of what you did to them. I never tried to improve ours and can't tell how it would have worked.

Boomer111

Without the clear coat the aluminum will weather quickly staining too.

It will look great after polished and figure monthly touch ups to keep them up.

Been there done that with 18 on a big truck.

If you are particular you will be putting in more polishing time.

Boomer111

Which reminds me back, in the I ram American racing Magnesium rims. Not clear coated, raw.

This rims would oxidize out in a few days, like overnight really.

I would polish the lip and use oil on the spokes, which where bead blasted texture.

1965 GTO with Tri power. Yellow with a black Landau top.

I kick myself for not having even a photo of the car. Actually none of my childhood/teen toys.

I had them too!

ForceFedC4

I left them raw, but the car spent most of it's time sitting in the garage so it never really had the chance to oxidize. I'm sure the new owner is loving the shine, and dreading having to keep all that shiny metal clean!~

NashvilleGrandSport

The wheels on my Datsun 240Z are aluminum. They were polished 25 years ago. I use these two products about every 6 months and they look great!

Use this first: http://www.californiacustom.com/alum...eoxidizer.html

and then: http://www.californiacustom.com/purp...al_polish.html




1971 Datsun 240Z... owned since 1987.

Gman in NC

I tried a little M205 on one of mine. Does a great job. Going to remove each wheel and finish the job Thanks for the info. I think these polished wheels do look better than chrome. Chrome looks 'plastic' to me. I've always taken pretty good care of mine treating them like paint. This will be a good project for a nice spring day.