The shine and polish is all dull and cloudy looking on the outer surface of the rims. Is there a way to repair and bring the shine back to them?

 

i used mothers aluminum polish on mine.... they look chrome now! also used it under my engine bay on everything aluminum like hoses, runners, ac parts looked chrome! it seems to last a while too

 

This is not something that can be polished. It seems that the wrong cleaner was used at some point and it destroyed the coating on the polished/chrome surface. I need to somehow get that dull area back to life.

 

I have worked at a car wash for three years now (just during High School). I have had a few few friends with similar problems. They couldn't get the surface to polish because of the coating was damaged so I got them too come buy work on a slow day and I used an acid on there wheels. The acid that I used can only be used on certain wheels without damaging the coating. The coating was already damaged so I used the acid to strip the rest of the coating. They then went and used a buffer and polish and polished the surface. The acid was purchased through a distrubutor that just sells to car washes. You could use aluminum stripper from Advanced Auto Parts and just spray it on the polished lip and then trying to polish with a polish and buffer after. You should be careful just to spray it on the lip of the wheel so it doesn't damage the good surface. Someone else may have a better solution but this is just what I have done.

 

um, yea. that stuff sounds pretty good, but instead of trying to only keep it on the wheel, just tape off the rest and go crazy with it. lol, i thought that was a no brainer.