Any tips for having rims powder coated?

[Squiggy]

2003 4.6is. Tried to sand and paint the front rims myself (twice) but looked like crap both times. User error I'm sure but not trying that again. Have never had anything powder coated before. Thinking about pulling the trigger. Any advice welcome! I'm also not sure what flipp'n color my rims are. Style 87 rims. Made in Italy. Regardless of their stock color I am thinking about going a shade or two lighter (brighter). Don't want 'white' but I find the stock gray/silver a bit too dark for my taste. Thanks

Squiggy

[Purplecty]

Originally Posted by Squiggy

2003 4.6is. Tried to sand and paint the front rims myself (twice) but looked like crap both times. User error I'm sure but not trying that again. Have never had anything powder coated before. Thinking about pulling the trigger. Any advice welcome! I'm also not sure what flipp'n color my rims are. Style 87 rims. Made in Italy. Regardless of their stock color I am thinking about going a shade or two lighter (brighter). Don't want 'white' but I find the stock gray/silver a bit too dark for my taste. Thanks

Squiggy

I had mine PC'd for $50 a wheel with no tires on in the original color. They just sandblasted them and fixed curb rash. Some may charge more and refinish the the rest of the wheel as well as needed which would require more time to be spent on them. My rims were heavily pitted and you can still see the pitting marks under the new PC but for the price and the before and after comparison, I am more than happy. Tips are, find a recommended powder coater and they should give you color options. Drop them off and let them work their magic...

[Squiggy]

Originally Posted by Purplecty

I had mine PC'd for $50 a wheel with no tires on in the original color. They just sandblasted them and fixed curb rash. Some may charge more and refinish the the rest of the wheel as well as needed which would require more time to be spent on them. My rims were heavily pitted and you can still see the pitting marks under the new PC but for the price and the before and after comparison, I am more than happy. Tips are, find a recommended powder coater and they should give you color options. Drop them off and let them work their magic...

$50 bucks a wheel? Dang that's a steal. Your car looks great man. Thanks!

[Purplecty]

Originally Posted by Squiggy

$50 bucks a wheel? Dang that's a steal. Your car looks great man. Thanks!

Thanks!

[Qsilver7]

Ditto Purplecty...find a local vendor. They should have some examples...and definitely should have color swatches (the place I took mine to be powder coated...had a huge color palette board of 2”x3” metal rectangles with all the available colors). You could take the color swatch out to the vehicle if you wanted to see what it looked like next to the car and in daylight.

They did require the tires and TPM sensors be removed. It cost me $400 to do all 4 wheels. I had this done in the spring of 2019 for the style 356 wheels mounted to my f06. The P.O. had painted them a dark gray...which to me didn’t look right since the car had chrome trim around the windows and chrome grills. To me, the wheels just looked like they were perpetually dirty from brake dust.

If you have some curb damage...inquire if they can repair that first, then powder coat the wheels. It may cost a bit more to do the repair and the powder coating.

Pics below shows the car with the darker graphite color (which to me didn’t match the other chrome line trim), then the powder coated wheels, and the last pic shows when I brought the newly powder coated wheels back home in the back of the X:

[Squiggy]

Originally Posted by Qsilver7

Pics below shows the car with the darker graphite color (which to me didn’t match the other chrome line trim), then the powder coated wheels, and the last pic shows when I brought the newly powder coated wheels back home in the back of the X:

Thanks for the tips. Good call on having your wheels done. They look 10 times better!