What's the longest your stock 16" alloys "lasted?"

[jkm311]

I say "lasted" because starting last summer, I began to notice some bubbling from underneath the top coating. A few people at my office have 2003, 2004 model year Vibes with the alloys, and they look terrible! Lots of bubbling from underneath. I have a 2006, and I just put new Potenza tires on. Needless to say, I didn't have the shop do anything beyond mounting the new tires on my alloys. I had some work to do before I put them on. I spent all morning cleaning the rims, front and back in an effort to slow down further degradation. I took Whelan's "000" steel wool idea a step softer and used the "0000." How many more summers do they have doctor? I might be looking at after-markets sooner than I wanted to. That's what I get for trying to stay stock for too long, I guess. Not hard to tell which rims were my fronts last year. A before pic and after pic of one of them are below. And on a completely related note, anybody know how to get individual pieces of road gravel/tar off a rim without gouging the crap out it? Some of those little suckers weren't going ANYWHERE, no matter how hard I tried.Before:After:

[rareorange1]

Got enough wheel weights? LOL.O also have an 06, and I has had bubbling on the wheels since I bought it last March. I just noticed today that some of the bubbles had infact broken, leaving the ugly metal underneath. Im going to probably leave it and not bother investing money into new rims.

[jkm311]

Didn't even know those were weights! Well, after giving them a good scrubbing, they are much nicer to look at. It was a pain, but it was worth it. I'm going to hang on to these long as I can. The bubbling is minimal, but enough to catch my eye every time I am looking at the rims that were OBVIOUSLY up front. My suspicion is all the extra brake dust/dirt/rust from the disc brakes is the culprit. The back two rims were much easier to clean, and had nearly NO bubbling. Odd, seeing that I rotated them 4 times over 3 years...

[vibolista]

You need to take that wheel/tire back to the installer and ask him to please rotate the tire 180 degrees on the rim and rebalance. He probably lined up the heaviest part of the rim with the heaviest part of the tire and thus the huge amount of weights that are stuck on your wheel. This is something that a good installer should check before mounting the tire, but unfortunately, most are in a hurry and just slap the tire on the wheel and balance it as is and that's that! I think the heavy spot on the tire is marked at the factory, but the wheel probably has to be either, naked (no tire) and spun on the balancing equipment, or put on a smooth and level surface so you can find that heavy spot. Few wheels and tires are perfect, that's why we have to balance them. If you put the heavy spots at 180 degrees from each other (tire and wheel) you then should have very little weight added, unless the tire or the wheel have an unusually heavy side. Where's the bubbling happening on your alloy? Do you clean and wax your wheels before the winter? Northern Winters are hell on wheels (no pun intended, sort of), with all the salt and rocks added to the roads. Best to get a cheap set of steelies and plastic hubcaps, and let them be sacrificed to the Winter salts and crud. Especially when you buy a new set of expensive $$$$ alloys. The other alternative... move where it doesn't snow!!! Either of those ways, you should get many years out of your alloys with little degradation.

[jkm311]

Quote, originally posted by vibolista » You need to take that wheel/tire back to the installer and ask him to please rotate the tire 180 degrees on the rim and rebalance. I'm fairly certain the weights have been on that rim since I bought the car new. I've only had the tires rotated 4 times at a quick in-and-out tire installer, and those weights were on that rim before I had them install my new Potenzas. Where did they come from?! Quote, originally posted by vibolista »Where's the bubbling happening on your alloy? When looking at the rim (mounted on the car), it's occurring along the back edge of each "spoke." My guess is the dust/rust that accumulated just on the back side of each spoke began to make its way under the paint/coating of the front. It's actually not as bad as I thought. Kind of over-reacted. I'm (removed)-retentive with that stuff, though. I think I counted 5 small spots amongst 2 rims. Quote, originally posted by vibolista »Do you clean and wax your wheels before the winter? Northern Winters are hell on wheels (no pun intended, sort of), with all the salt and rocks added to the roads. I do now! I have a new set of steelies I painted black and clear coated that take the Michigan winter abuse now. I had lots of fun the past 4 months with my very first set of Blizzaks. I will clean/wax them well, in addition to my alloys. That extra wax barrier helps so much, I am sure.Quote, originally posted by vibolista »Either of those ways, you should get many years out of your alloys with little degradation. I will now that I have committed myself to making them a top priority (cleaning, waxing, rotating, swapping on my winters, etc.). It can be a pain for someone like me that doesn't have a whole lot of equipment, but I honestly was able to clean, and install my summers without any real issues, using basic stuff. I also got some accumulated salt and rust off of my brake assemblies. Took a couple years off of those pretty quick! Rubbed a light coating of WD-40 with a rag to slow down any more. I was careful not to get any of that near my discs or calipers, though.

[vibolista]

Good work! Keep them up and they should last a long time.