I have seen some ultra low mileage cars that have gray valve stem caps on the tires. I can't remember for the life of me but did gray caps come on all late model ThirdGens from the factory?
Thanks
Mark

 

I have heard that tta came with them, but otherwise not sure

 

I replaced my original OEM tires only 4 years ago @ 54,200 miles (67,200 miles today). They were all black.

 

Mine came with grey caps.

 

1982-1984 Z28's came this way too...

I still have mine.

These are not all that hard to find... Lots of Hondas had these in the 90's too

 

From what I've been told by people who worked in dealerships back then the cars were delivered to the dealerships with grey caps. Something about how the tires are mounted at the factory. But part of the dealer prep for delivery to the customer involved replacing the grey ones with black ones, so all cars would have arrived at the dealership with grey caps but should have left the dealership with black ones.

I dont know how true it is but thats what I've been told by people who worked at some of the local Chevrolet and Pontiac dealerships around here.

Steve

 

I know the gray caps were used to balance the wheels. I'm not sure of the actual process but some kind of optical sensor would read the gray cap to aid in the balancing process. I have an article from a Pontiac magazine that tells why some cars had gray caps. So that is the reason...to aid in wheel balancing.

 

Yeah the wheel balancing thing is something that I remember hearing before, and from working at a dealer myself, it is not at all surprising that some cars had the caps replaced with black ones and some left the dealer with the gray caps.
Now I just need to find me some of the gray ones for the GTA.
Thanks guys as always

 

Actually tehy are reasonably easy to come by if you look at more than F-bodies... Look at spare tires... Thats where I get all of mine.

John

 

I remember seeing the last gen Mustangs came with them, John, which spare tires are you getting them from?

 

I remember when my friend brought his new '03 Ford Ranger home from the dealer it had gray valve stem caps. I'm sure tire shops have large piles of them.

 

I think the tire shops throw them away.

There is a junkyard locally that stacks the spare tires on rods, I went through and replaced all the Gray ones with Black ones. I have seen them on Truck spare tires, Car spare tires, you just need to look... HEck I got three of mine from the spare tires I had in storage from F-bodies.

John

 

My 83 came from the factory with gray caps.

Larry