Posted on 10/10/2018
Chrome Rims. A love / hate relationship. In my opinion chrome looks great on anything, but in this day and age of reducing weight by any means possible, we end up with problems in a relatively short time. We have chrome trim that is essentially a piece of plastic with a thin chrome covering and aluminum wheels that have a very thin layer of chrome attached to the surface. All is good and well while new, but get a few miles of use and changes start to occur. In this article I am focusing on rims. Anything that can chip the chrome will allow contaminants, such as salt and road chemicals, to get under the layer of chrome and the chrome will start to lift due to oxidation of the aluminum. Chrome wheels that keep losing air are most likely to have oxidation/corrosion at the bead sealing area and/or the valve stem area. ‘Pound on’ wheel weights have a coating on the weight to protect aluminum rims but the problem is the ... read more