Ok, well the deal is this guy that details my car thought he knew better than me when I told him just use soap and water on my rims (Volk SF Challenges). He said nah, that he had this wheel cleaner that he uses all the time and its safe for all rims. Well turns out he was wrong and now I'm left with rims that look like they have a matte finish on the lips or almost a machined looking lip, not to mention the numerous acid etchings. Is there anything I can do to polish the lip on my rims back out? I've tried doing it by hand and it hasn't really done much. The guy tried to polish them with the stuff he had and a buffer right after it happened but he really didn't do much good, and actually slightly burned one of them in the process. The place I bought the rims from said to use Mother's Metal Polish on them with a buffing wheel, but I don't really have any experience with one. Should this work or do those rims have a clear coat on the lip? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'd post up pics but I don't have anywhere to host them.

Thanks in advance!

-Stephen

 

I am going to prephase this by saying I don't have experience with those specific rims, however, it is highly likely they have a coating, and the coating has been damaged in which case the only way to fix the problem is new rims. You can try metal polish, but if they are coated all it will do is level off the damaged areas, which might look fine, but will leave you with good looking damaged wheels.

If they have no coating then polishing them might work depending on how bad the damage is. Pictures might help, and if I were you I would call Volks, or whoever you bought the wheels from and find out for sure if they are coated.

Acid wheel cleaners, as you found out, should only be used on heavily soiled rims. The odds of them damaging a wheel is low, but it sounds like perhaps he left it on too long. There are a million cleaners out there which are safe for rims, the most common of which is an around the house APC called Simple Green.