Hey whats up everyone? I am new here and I could use some advice. I have a bit of a problem with my rims. I have an 04 coupe with the 18" rims which now have developed stains. I took it to a friend who has owned a wheel and tire shop for over 30 years and he said the stains got underneath the final coating of the wheel and that there is basically no way to remove them. When I wash my car use only soap and water but I have also taken my G to a local car wash. Apparantly the cleaner they used stained my wheel. The dealer will not help me on this and told me that it happens on the satin finished wheels but not the others. Here is my problem, if I was told in the beginning that the wheels were that sensitive I would not have even paid to upgrade them. My friend with the wheel shop said that the rims should never do that and that he has seen plenty of Gs and never come accross that problem. I guess I am just pissed becuase I paid 40k for a car and now the rims look like crap because I took it to the car wash. Anyone else experience this BS?

Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Jon

 

thats so very common. There is no place that can duplicate that process here in the US. They can refinish them, but its slightly darker, so you'd be doing the whole set.

You can read about countless people who've had the problem on 18's on g35driver.com

basically, the only way the dealer will replace on chemical stains is if they did it, and even thats iffy.. but even the dealer's detailer have done this many times.

 

The dealer didn't ruin the finish on the wheels and the product is not defective, so they should not be held responsible for this problem.

The car wash did mess up your wheels and those are the people you need to be talking to.

 

Most car washes use a strong, corrosive chemical to clean wheels, so that's your problem right there. Get them refinished.

 

People have damaged brand new volks running their wheels through a carwash...

 

One of the two local Infiniti dealers here in Cleveland closed shop, so I had to go and get my 18" OEM wheels/tires from them (they store them for you in you buy a winter tire/wheel pkg from them) and bring them to the other Infiniti dealer.

When I originally took the wheels in, they only had 3300 miles on them and were in near perfect condition. When I went to take them, one of them had a few small 1mm sized black pock marks on one of the spokes. They were more than just surface marks because you could feel the pits. Needless to say, Infiniti told me that there was nothing that they could've done that would cause the marks, but I told them, "Hey, they weren't there when I brought them here so something must have happened!"

Well, turns out that they're supposed to type any wheel damage into the computer before accepting them, and low and behold there was nothing in the file (because as I said the wheels looked practically new and did not have those marks) so they told me that they would refinish the wheel at their cost.

Now that I read that the refinishing process makes them look darker, I'm a bit concerned, but I'm planning to get AM wheels anyway so these will just be sitting in the garage unless I decide to sell them.

FWIW, it's still a damn mystery how those pock marks got on my wheels though.