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Hi ETCG thanks for the add!
I’m here because I like the series of vids I have discovered on YouTube. I have found them to be instructive and informative.
I am trying to find out about restoring seriously corroded cast alloy wheels (rims). My car is a French Renault 2005 model Laguna, and it has spent the majority of its life in the English port of Hawich. The wheels have been exposed to a lot of salt air and moisture, to the point where the alloy is bubbling up under the paint. Is there a way to kill the rot and restore the wheel?I apologise if I am asking in the wrong place… I’m kinda new to this!
Once again thanks for the add!
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I would recommend you take the car to one of the many wheel restorers in the UK like the one in the link and let them have a look at the wheels. Only then can you determine if you can refurbish them and then what the cost will be in your case. Removing one of the wheels while you are there to inspect both sides would be a good idea. The usual procedure is to take the wheel back to bare metal with a bead blaster , repair any damage and then either repaint them with a spray gun or put them through the powder coating process whichever the customer wants.
You can also buy a wide variety of aftermarket wheels for you car so you should check on some of the prices before going down the refurbishment route. Your wheels might be badly corroded in some areas with 10 years of salt air and salty moisture exposure and you may be better off just replacing them with an after market wheel.
If the wheels are quite bad from what you can see I would just replace them with a decent aftermarket wheel that will suit the car’s design and be done with it unless you are wedded to the stock renault design on the car now.
Do they have junk yards in the UK in your town where you could maybe find some in better shape? I mean like identical ones to the wheels you have.
The wheels you have could probably be restored but it would likely cost a fortune (whether a shop did it or you bought the tools to do it) based on how you describe the condition.
Also, if the salt was bad enough to ruin the wheels to that point, what kind of rust damage does the rest of the car have, especially around the wheel wells?
Cam0888 had a good suggestion. Just keep in mind that restoring the wheels for a home mechanic can turn out to be a very time consuming process if you want to do it right.
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