Has anyone tried to repair their own curb rash on their wheels. Planning to do it myself just wondering if anyone had experience doing one themselves. What stuff I would need to do my own alloy wheels. OEM and Volk wheels ><. Or is it better off bringing it to a shop to do it.

 

google is your friend
http://www.doityourself.com/stry/5-s...r#.U7RJQ0DN6So

if you need to add material to build up the surface, take it to a pro. It will require welding an getting the wheel back to round

 

Here is a post I did on my wheels. As far a curb rash, no big deal. You need to sand/shape it down and use the bond putty. It may take several coats and sand jobs to get it to your satisfaction. I was using some pretty fine wet/dry to smooth it out at the end before preparing to paint. Be careful with powder coat. I have seen posts of cracks in the wheels developing from the stress of the high temp baking.

Most shops I checked with charged a minimum of $180 a wheel. I would do this again. There is a little learning curve painting. If you have never done it before, practice on something else.




When I got my S, the only thing that was not stock was the wheel spoke color. The owner did a nice job (from a paint perspective) matching and painting the spokes the Rio Yellow color. You can see that. Did not care for that and so I took it back to stock. Did not want to powder coat; too many stories of weakened wheels. Plus several quotes of $180/wheel. I did the Dupli-color thing a year this spring. Matched the Honda color but it was not the "wheel paint", just automotive "perfect" match. It turned out okay but I mucked it up a bit when I tried to sand down some imperfections and repaint before "its time" (Have to do it in one hour or wait a week) Was not really happy; I am a little picky. The spoke color changed slightly to a nickel color; kinda liked it. Durable.
Anyway, I yanked the things off the car and spent some time with Bondo putty (great stuff- you can use it on plastic and wood too) out of a tube to fill things and sand down. I used the Dupli-color silver paint 3 cans, and 3 clear coat. I have just recovered the use of sensation on my finger!
It helped that I had used it before so I could spray the right amount with out it dripping. I let it cure a week before reinstalling. I taped off the inside of the wheel right on the groove near the edge so I did not paint the entire thing. Index cards worked great to mask the tire. It looks factory. I did not even let air out of the tire.

I added this as I responded to a PM:

This is what I did. The yellow spokes (when they were painted by original owner) were "taped" off where the spoke flairs out to the circumference of the wheel. You could take your nail and catch it but it did not look bad as it was right on the transition of 2 surfaces and 2 colors, silver and yellow. My big issue was getting rid of that edge so I took a wood shaping tool (just a dowel with a flat edge- kind of like an awl) and chipped/cut down the edge. I then used the Bondo putty to fill it in and sanded that down till I was happy with how it looked. I also used the putty to fill in small holes and gouges. I did that a few times till I was satisfied I had not missed any.

Using sandpaper, I think it was 600 wet or dry (on paint directions), I gave the entire area to be painted (including the yellow) a LIGHT sanding. You don't need to take it to the metal. You just want something for the paint to grab onto. Dull it.

As I was going silver on silver, I used that groove just inside as the dividing line and taped that off so I just painted the outside part. I could have done the entire thing but I saw the tire weights and I thought the next time I get tires and new weights it might not look so great having a "hole" of old paint there so I just left the inside old silver. Can't really see it anyway.

The trick with the painting is following directions carefully. You have one hour to paint the color and one more to do the clear. 10 minutes between coats. If you go past, you have to wait a week. No interruptions. The first two coats are LIGHT ones. You will think you really did not do anything; the coats are too light and not covering. Don't worry. By the third coat it will. The last coat is the "heavy" one. You need to keep moving so it does not run but at the same time you need it to look wet.

The more clear coats you put on, the better it looks.

As far as the color goes, the first time I used Dupli-Color perfect match auto paint "Honda Billet Silver Metal" BHA0992. By trial and error (no one could give me the color of the wheels including Honda) I thought it was very close. It was fine; the fronts did darken a little to a nickel finish.

For round two ( I had to go back and finish the edges better) I went straight wheel paint. Its just silver. Only one silver. It is pretty darn close to the original and has some metallic flakes in it (once again the clear coat brings that out) I thought the specific wheel paint would hold up better than straight auto paint. Lots of reviews said it did.

If you do hose it up just wait a week and resand and repaint. The big deal now is temperature. If you do it when it is too cold you may wind up with a grainy look. I kept the cans in the house overnight to be sure they were warm. 60 is the min but I waited till it hit 70. One other thing is follow directions to shake the cans. Shake often as it says during painting.

 

Great writeup ! I've spray painted too many things over the year i can't stress how much this has saved pain in my finger. If you do this and you are going to painting something as important as your wheels, just another tip. You should use a pan full of hot water to put the cans in. It makes the spray come out much better.