Scraped the wheel on a curb? We repair the cosmetic damage on the car, about an hour a wheel, after checking it isn’t bent or cracked.
Is this you?
The silver or painted edge chewed up where it met the curb.
Light damage on a painted face can be refinished to match.
That’s a bent wheel, not curb rash. It goes to a wheel specialist, not a refinish.
Safety first
Every wheel gets spun for runout and checked around the inside for cracks before anything else. That check is allowed to end the job.
A bent or cracked rim is a safety item. It never gets filled and painted so it looks fine; it goes to a specialist with a straightening press, or it gets replaced.
How we do it
Spun for runout and checked for cracks. If it fails, we stop.
The damaged lip sanded back and filled where the metal is gouged.
Re-cut to the wheel’s profile and refinished to match the face.
A durable clear coat, and the tire left on the whole time.
On the day
The van brings its own power, water and light. All it needs from you is the space below.
When we’ll say no
You hear these from your photos, before anyone drives anywhere.
This is the absolute line. A structural fault never gets covered with a cosmetic finish, because the customer then drives away believing the wheel was checked and passed. It goes to a straightening specialist or it gets replaced, and we will not quote around it.
The concentric cut on that face comes off a wheel lathe and a lathe does not fit in a van. We will do the painted lip and barrel and say plainly what we have not done, rather than spraying silver over a cut finish.
Plated finishes cannot be repaired on a driveway in any way that looks better than the damage. Straight no.
Once alloy corrosion has spread beneath the coating over most of a wheel, a spot repair lifts again within months. That is a full strip and refinish off the car, and we will say so.
The details
Sliding an alloy along a curb takes the coating and a little of the aluminum off the outer lip. It is ugly, it is on the part of the wheel everybody looks at, and it is genuinely cosmetic — the wheel is doing its job exactly as before. That is the repair we do: sand the damaged lip back to sound metal, fill where the alloy is gouged, re-cut the profile so the lip is the shape the designer drew, then prime, color and clear.
An hour to ninety minutes a wheel, done on the car, with the tire still on for lip and face work. Masking the tire and the brake properly is most of the setup.
Before any of that, the wheel gets spun and watched for runout and inspected around the inner barrel for cracks — the inside face, where a crack from a pothole actually starts and where nobody standing beside the car ever looks. This check is not a formality and it is not there to pad the invoice. It is allowed to end the job, and sometimes it does.
A bent or cracked rim does not get a cosmetic repair from us. Not a filled one, not a painted one, not a “it will be fine, it is only slightly out” one. Covering structural damage with a finish so that it looks fine is the worst thing anybody in this trade can do, because the customer then drives away believing the wheel was inspected and passed. That wheel goes to a specialist with a straightening press, or it gets replaced. There is no version of it that ends with us painting over it.
A painted or powder-coated face is straightforward to match on site. A machined or diamond-cut face is not: that finish is produced by a lathe skimming the face of the wheel to leave fine concentric turning marks under clear, and a lathe does not fit in a van. We can repair the painted inner spokes and the lip on one of those and make it look right, and we say so plainly. A full machined face is a workshop job on a wheel lathe. What we will not do is spray silver over a cut face and hope you do not look at it in daylight next to the other three.
Chrome and PVD wheels are plated, not painted, and there is no on-car repair for them that does not look worse than the damage. Those get a straight no.
If the wheel has a pressure sensor and the tire is coming off for a full face refinish, the valve service kit gets replaced while it is apart, because putting an eight year old rubber grommet back into a wheel you have just spent ninety minutes making perfect is asking for a slow leak in February.
And matching is per wheel, not per set. A single refinished wheel next to three that are four years old will be very slightly cleaner-looking. Most people never notice. Some people notice immediately, and if you are one of them, all four is the answer — which is worth knowing before we start on one.
Questions
We can repair the painted lip and barrel and make it look right, and we’ll tell you what we haven’t done. A fully machined face needs a wheel lathe in a workshop.
No. Cosmetic lip repairs are done with the wheel on the car and the tire in place.
Then it doesn’t get a cosmetic repair from us. It goes to a wheel specialist or gets replaced, and we’ll say so from your photos.
Dispatch looks at your photos and comes back with a yes, a no, or a written price, usually within the hour. The van comes to wherever the car is parked.
Other work
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