I searched but came up with nothing...

I'm about to send my 87 Iroc wheels off to get polished to a member of this board who has a polishing company. He only does the face of the wheel (not the accent lines running down the middle of each spoke, and not the triangle area between each spoke).

I've gone ALL over my town trying to find a shop that will paint the accent lines and the triangle area (and we have ALOT of paint and body shops...pop of Augusta is about 600,000). I've been to probably 15 places (the nicer chain stores, haven't tried the local businesses yet) and every single one of them said the don't and won't paint wheels.

What's the reason for this? I don't see how it would be harder than painting part of a car. You probably just sand, put down some bonding agent so the paint has something to stick to, mask it off, and shoot it.

I don't have painting tools or experience so doing it myself is pretty much out of the quesiton. Why won't paint shops do this?

edit: not sure if this belongs here or in Body & Interior...feel free to move if this belongs over there

 

CamaroRS385hp,
I think your best bet would be going to one of the small shops. i currently work at one, and i know that unlike these guys who own these huge shops with the 5 lifts and 5 spray booths, the "little guys" like were i work will probably do a better job and take care of you brand new polished rims better. The guys at the big shops have sometimes up to 10-15 guys working on 20 different cars, so there runnning all over the place finding tools answering phones etc.... not looking at a standing up rim accidently know it over, then your screwed. plus look at it this way if all local body shops are like my boss, they are there at 5 in the morning and never leave until 9, making money for their family. i would spend maybe a few more bucks on the local shop know your rims will be stored in a nice spot out of the way.... those are just my $0.02's albert III

 

I spoke to a guy who did some stripe work on my car about doing this, and he said it wasn't cost effective because there would be too much time involved to tape them up. Sounded bogus to me, so I offered to tape them off and let him spray them, and he said he didn't want to be held responsible for another person's tape job...sounded like a bunch of excuses to me.

 

When me and my dad were redoing his GTO's wheels we contacted a local paint shop here in town and they said it would be no problem, and they were two tone. But we ended up just painting them ourselves

 

yeah i guess it would take a while to tape it off....i'd be willing to pay for it though. i told the people at the paint shops that i'd pay what they wanted but they still said no. guess i'll check out some of the local shops now...

amcarboy3: so a place like yours would do wheels you think?

 

like i said i dont know how all small shops are, but i think there all the same. they do a really good job. We have about a dozen customers who have brought almost all of there cars in at one time or another, no matter how big or small the problem... they usually get very good customer service. all in all, i think that a small shop will probably do your rims... albert III

P.S when you get them done PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post pictures of them, i would love to see what the final job looks like on your car!

 

Yea there is a whole lot of taping involved in it.. your probably looking at more money for taping it up than actually painting it and people probably assume its not even worth quoting you on. Its really not that difficult to do if you decided to do it yourself. I didn't have painting experience myself and just taped mine and rattle can painted em and they look great.... or atleast I think so

 

I painted mine myself, took me about a day or so to do all 4, but that was stripping and cleaning them with steel wool also. I dont live too far from Augusta either, Im down in Aiken SC. Not sure how to put a picture on here, but you can see mine here.

http://camaroz28.cardomain.com/id/89irocztpi

 

grngryoutmyway - did you sand or anything first or just spray? what kind of paint did you use? is it staying in good condition?

the inserts on my wheels right now really look fine...they're gunmetal grey but i'd rather them be black

i dont think it would take too long to tape off, whether i do it or a shop does it...the 86-88 Iroc wheel is one of the least intricate camaro wheels

 

I found an article under the sticky "polishing your rims" thread and went to a link inside it about painting the rims. I also painted the 85-86 IROC rims. All I did was strip them with aircraft remover and sand away what paint was left afterwards. Then taped everything off and spray painted them with dupli- color paint from the auto parts store. I didnt get the right blue, so im going to re do them and then hit them with a clear coat. Not sure if thats exactly what your looking for or not, but I hope it helps.

 

Nobody wants to be bothered, cause basically its a pain in the a**. When I resprayed my car, the shop owner/friend said he refused to repaint the RS wheels the body color (I gotta agree...those body color wheels weren't GM's greatest idea). Said he'd paint them charcoal instead...just to hold me over til I decide which wheels I want. Well...he did it..and did a great job too..but told me after it was just a real pain masking everything off. He did it for me since he's a friend, and wanted the car to look right...but he said it's not something he'd be interested in doing again any time soon.

 

all in time costs, why don't you just paint them. if you don't personally have a painter friend that can help you out your going to pay more or less for this little item.

painting things isn't cheap....detail work is that much more.

 

I've used the duplicolor before with very good results, painted my T56 shifter a nice purple/blue. It's a three step process with primer/color/clear and looks really awesome when finished. Chipping shouldn't be a problem if you use enough coats of clearcoat.

 

I just stopped a 2 paint shops to get a price quote on painting the center on my new wheels black. I told the guy I was going ALL the prep wprk and all they had to do was mask and paint. first shop said $400 for the 4 . I then told him i needed a used bumper cover sanded and painted and he told me $250. Go figure. anyway, I stopped at another shop and the owner told me $100 for all 4 wheels. plus he has a heated booth