I have to either refinish and powdercoat the 20-inch Nevis alloy wheels on my 2011 XKR convertible or look for refinished or new wheels. Redoing the four wheels professionally from a reputable supplier will cost me $900-$1,000. Since the wheels were a $5,000 option on my car when new, probably having my wheels done is the best, most economical route. Any thoughts?

 

Get new wheels, send the Nevises to me, I'll pay shipping!
Actually, I am seriously considering new wheels myself, with wider rims and more backspace to fit larger tires without all the crazy Spacer stuff.
Course, if I had an extra set of Nevis wheels, I'd see if a wheel guy could swap out the rim parts and keep the centers. Quite a job THAT would be, but possible.
I like the Nevis, they don't have all those crazy fake bolt heads to clean for hours and hours.

 

It's difficult to tell from the picture but what is wrong with them.

 

At one point before I owned the car, the wheels had been refinished (poorly) and areas that can't be cleaned are showing on each wheel. Not that big a deal, but it's a 21,000-mile pristine car and the wheel blemishes detract.

 

 

Thanks for the info. I'm in Sarasota, FL and the costs quoted to me came from a high-quality shop.

 

The shop that did my wheels did a great job, but it would be hard to compare the quality of two shops without giving them identical wheels and comparing the results. Given that they are so far apart, it becomes impractical.
I may have over stated the price I paid (its been awhile), based on the pricing on their web site it was probably be $600. I took a total of three sets of wheels to them for refinishing (and they did give me a discount on the 3rd set, for being a 'volume customer'). My wife's Integra wheels looked better than new (added two tone color and mirror cut surfaces). All I can say is for anyone in the Chicagoland area, if you need wheel repair/refinishing, check out Crown Customs & Coatings:
https://crowncustoms.net/

 

I've had experiences with three different wheel shops, I think you'll find you get what you pay for. I came across a set of Kalimnos wheels that were too good a deal to pass up even though they all had worse road rash than I've ever had on any of my own wheels. I had them refinished at a highly-rated local shop and paid $175 per wheel, which is a bit high for the Dallas area, but that included $25 extra per wheel for the hypersilver finish I chose. I think they literally look better than new, whereas the other times I had repairs done, I could always tell where the blemishes used to be. I think higher end places actually fill in areas to retain the original surface as much as possible while the cheaper places just grind down the blemished areas then bring the rest of the wheel down to match.

But ultimately, you're right that the wheels will cost you a ton to replace so you might as well spend the money to get them done right.

 

Seeing this post I looked and saw I cleaned mine just about 10,000 miles ago. So being I set up my annual oil change for next week I decided to clean up the winter sleep and today removed and cleaned and polished the rear wheels. Tomorrow maybe I'll do the fronts. So here are the results with 1 before shot and 2 finished shots.

 

Beautiful job, that's what they should look like! Thanks for sharing.

 

Wow, how did you get them so clean?

 

1st just regular wheel cleaner then scrub with car soap and wheel brush. Any road tar I used fine steel wool. I did this about 10K miles ago and also did this when I got the car at 6700 miles. Car now has 22K miles. I waxed them after with plain old car paste wax. I used mothers. Also cleaned red brake calipers and painted the center section of the rotors with flat black high temp paint. Took an hour and a half to do 2 rear wheels.

 

Simple Green and a bristle brush works very well cleaning wheels...

 

I use Simple Green as well, for cleaning, diluted about 2/1 with water.

 

Nice work! I did mine a year, or so, ago and sprayed them a wheel protectant afterwards. It seems to work as any brake dust is easily shed-ed.

 

OK I did the front wheels today and had an interesting observation. I see a lot of posts where there seems to be a lot of complaining about brake dust. As I mentioned earlier I have about 10K miles since I last cleaned and waxed my wheels. I also usually get a touchless car wash every 2 weeks during the summer and don't drive in the rain unless I am caught in a storm. I usually wipe the wheels after a drive but only on the outside. So below is a picture of my front wheel before and after cleaning. The interesting part is I don't have to much brake dust .

 

I made the move and had the wheels made new by The Wheel Doctor in Sarasota, FL. He stripped them, made some magic, special primer, powder-coated in color similar to Liquid Silver and clear-coated. Job came in at low-end of $800 to $1,000 estimate ($200 per wheel) and they look better than brand new! Check out his services at The Wheel Doctor, Sarasota, Florida, Wheel Repair

 

Another option would have been to upgrade to the Kalminos wheels.
They have 35% fewer spokes And you can get your fingers behind each spoke.
Essentially you can clean the entire Kalminos wheel from the front- in 60 seconds. The inability to do this with the Nevis makes people give up early on, and the downward spiral begins.

 

I happen to really like the Nevis wheels which came with the car when new. Last thing I want to do was buy a new set of very expensive wheels that I don't particularly like better than the ones I have. Then I would have to try and sell my wheels. Too much work without any rewards other than easier cleaning.

 

Kalimnos wheels are gross, with all those goofy bolt heads and such, makes it MORE difficult to keep clean. Plus, they are just plain ugly. Upgrade??? I think not.