I have a 04 TB 6mt, and I have a set of 19" axis hiro's installed. they are the gun metal (or Anthericite or something) color.
Well on the passenger side (both wheels) there is some decaying on the clear coat on the lips or something, I must have driven through something that is eating them up, they are getting proggesivly worse and worse. Also it seems a layer of paint is chipping away from them on the spokes, its weird because everytime I wash them with a power washer more and more chips off, this doesnt bother me much because underneath the paint that's chipping it is the exact same color. You can't even see the difference. Any ways, what I am getting at is I LOVE the look of silver wheels on twilight blue, and with these wheels going south the way they are, I would just like to re-finish them, I dont really want to pay to have them powder coated as Im not a perfectionist. I have painted wheels in the past on some of my other cars.
I am just wondering if I use aircraft remover on the entire wheel (lip included) it should take it down to it's orginal metal, I am thinking I will just polish the origanal metal on the lip, but then I want to paint the spokes. I am just looking for alittle insight with anyone who has experiance doing somehting like this. Everytime I have painted wheels, I have just done the whole wheel, and not the lip. and the one time I left a chrome lip, I just masked the lip off and sanded the rim, I didnt have to worry about stripping or polishing it.
Any tips? insight? Suggestions? (besides getting them powder coated)
here is a pic of the car.

(the wheels that you can see arent the ones with the issue


thanks guys, I appriciate the help!

 

I guess maybe this is an Axis thing. I had a set of Axis Shine that did the exact same things. Clear coat started peeling for no reason whatsoever. I sold em and never refinished em, though.

 

I thought about just getting new ones, but with these having the issues they do, I wouldnt get as much for them. and I really do like these wheels alot.

 

I loved my Axis Shine, but the dust out here made my lips look like **** all the time, wasn't worth it for me to keep em. I wonder if anyone else has these problems with their Axis wheels