rickez

I ordered my Z06 with the polished wheels. I do see some room for improvement on the polishing job. The wheels apparently have a clear-coat on them.

I'm not convinced that I want to go with a chrome finish, but would like to polish-up the aluminum.

Does anyone out there have experience in this area? Any suggestions?

Rz

GoTreo

From everything I have been told, the factory polished wheels will not polish well at all! Even after the clearcoat is removed! That is becuase of how they were originally built. That is why I just ordered these wheels:



You can sell your polished wheels and then use those $'s to get the HRE's.

Jeff

jbp8653

Local guy in Tampa who has been polishing wheels for years told me that it's the clear coat that makes them look bad. Said removing the
clear would make them shine right up. But he added you then have to keep a good coat of wax on them to keep them looking good. Hope this helps.

redzone

The factory polished wheels will polish out just fine.....Get some airplane stripper to remove the clearcoat & a jar of Mothers wheel polish to shine them up. Just be prepared to polish on a regular basis if you drive the car much at all.
Or you can do like I am...pay someone to strip,polish & reclear the wheels the way they should have been done from the factory...cost is $125.00 per wheel.
BTW, I'll take a trailer load of HRE's if you can buy them for the price of used Z06 rims The last set I bought run me about 6k.

vetdude

All C6 wheels are cast aluminum. The grain is not as dense as the forged aluminum of the C5 polished wheels so they don't polish to a bright shine. I don't know if having the wheels stripped, re-polished, then clear coated again will help that much. I had the painted wheels on my Silver Z06 and swapped them out with the factory polished version. As milky/cloudy as they are, the polished wheels definitely look better on the Silver car IMHO, breaking up all the Silver. Gives it a "machined" look.

redzone

I'm no Metalurgist so I don't know if this is a valid point or not....I do know however we just purchased a Chevy pick up for one of our salesmen that has polished wheels & they are perfect....I highly doubt they are forged wheels.

Also, and I could be wrong, but I believe the only C5 wheels that were forged were some of the early Z06 wheels.

LPE385

You can polish these wheels whether they are cast or forged. The 97-99 wheels were cast and I've had them polished to near perfect back in the day. The 2000-2004 wheels were forged same no problem. The 2001 Z06 wheels were forged and the 2002-2004 were cast. The cast just takes a little more elbow grease. Hell I use to polish the 91-96 wheels to near perfect and they were cast as well. If you put clear over any polish job it will dull them out. If you leave them bare they will look killer and only require some light maintence every month or two.

Its not that difficult. My Fikse's are bare on the lips and they polish up just fine. I think the Chrome versions look cheap and too bling on the new Z06 wheels. I like the satin polish look.

Vette5.5

There's a product called Zoop-Seal, that claims to protect polished metals for years. I've never used it, but biker's use this stuff to protect Harley aluminum bits. It wont last as long as clear coat, but maybee a good comprimise to bare polished.