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Polished Alum 5 spoke - Polishing question

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Old March 28th, 2012, 11:05 AM
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Default Polished Alum 5 spoke - Polishing question

Looking for any DIY tips to bring back the shine to my rims. I have an '07 LTZ with the polished aluminum rims. It's had 4 winters of tough love and the rims are showing the age.

Any tips from others out there on what I can accomplish with a little elbow grease (or Dremel)? Product recommendations?

After that has anyone ever had their repaired professionally? I contacted a local alloy repair biz and may drop by for an estimate but figured I could try being thrifty first and doing it myself.
Old March 28th, 2012, 12:31 PM
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I use simple green, but it's not enough to remove really built up stuff on these wheels.

The dealer used something with a light acid in it, and it worked well, but isn't recommended... but it did work...

I clean mine inside/out when I rotate the tires for oil changes.

When this set of tires wear out I might treat myself to the Chevy 22s that are options on the 2010+ tahoes.

Like these bad boys

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2007-2012-CH...060886&vxp=mtr

Last edited by SabrToothSqrl; March 28th, 2012 at 12:36 PM.
Old March 28th, 2012, 12:36 PM
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I was doing some googling and found one site that said you can use Easy Off oven cleaner. yikes...not sure about that one yet.

A lot more results show if you really really want to dive in that you can go in incremental wet sanding to restore the polish. Basically once you remove the clear coat you can sand away to bring back a nice shine/polish.
Old March 28th, 2012, 8:11 PM
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Sounds like the clear coat has gone south. Only solution is to have them stripped, polished, and re-coated. Or get them chromed.
Old March 31st, 2012, 10:55 AM
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I use "Power Ball" from mothers. It attaches to your power drill and it comes with a small bottle of polish compound. It works fairly well. Good luck
Old March 31st, 2012, 6:37 PM
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I have a friend that raves about the power ball, he uses it on his Vette...
I have been hand cleaning and polishing my wheels on my 07 Tahoe, they are in very good shape...I'd get the ball but I don't think I'm going to get any more shine out of them...but I'd probably be a little bit less work to do though
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