A few days ago, I purchased 4 ZO6 chrome repos from a reputable vendor and was looking forward to the change from my "not-so-polished" stock aluminum wheels on the 2002 coupe in time for car show season in my area. The wheels get delivered and while the front faces are beautiful with triple-chroming, the interiors of the wheels, the big, deep area, are scratched, discolored and have spots that look like missing chrome (or paint maybe?).

I called the distributor and they told me that only the faces are triple-chromed, not the entire wheel and what I am seeing is normal. They told me that if the wheels are going onto a show car, which was the plan before this, that most people spray paint the wheel interiors to make them uniform looking.

Spray-paint? What did I just spend $1300 for? Anyone else hear of this? I'm looking for serious suggestions here as to whether I ship the wheels back (at my cost, they say), or go ahead and paint the wheels like they suggest.

Either way, I cannot put these things on my car and enter any show. I would be laughed out of the building with these as they are now. And as for spray paint, I wanted to drive my car too. I didn't plan on having to trailer it to shows to keep the wheel paint nice. Suggestions? Please? :crazy:

Thanks for reading this newbie's first post.

 

Paint them with automotive paint, or have them powdercoated. I would agree that this is typical for a lot of wheel companies, but I am not a chrome wheel guy though. I did buy polished wheels for my truck, and they are not very finished on the inside either.

 

I was just looking at the site of an fbody guy that put some chrome AFS wheels on. He posted a photo of the inside of one of them. I would seriously consider sending the wheels back and shopping around until you find a vendor that will guarantee a show quality finish on the inside, too JMHO

http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/96ss/zr33.JPG

 

Doubt if you'll get show-quality chrome on the backside/inside of a wheel unless you pay extra for it.
Whether to paint or return is your call.
Sounds like you don't really want to paint, so you may be some bucks ahead to buy polished wheels and have a local plater chrome them to YOUR specifications.

Larry
code5coupe
:seeya

 

Thank you very much for all your input. I appreciate it. After looking at what else is available out there, looks like I'll be sending these scratchy ones back and getting something I really want.