Diamond Cut Refurb
 

Hi,

I'd be interested to know people's experiences with diamond cut alloy wheel refurbs.

It's more expensive than a full powder coat and there's no warranty on the finish. I understand they're likely to start corroding again after a short while... but I'm inclined to go for it anyway as I don't really fancy a full powder coat.

Would you recommend or discourage it?

I looked into diamond cut finish a few years ago. I found most refurbishes give 3 or 6 months warranty and no more. You can only have this done once or twice depending on how much material they have to remove as it eventually weakens the wheels. Brand new diamond cut wheels all start to look scabby after a short time in the UK, a combination of too much wet weather and winter salt on the roads. It you live in California they are perfect but not in the UK.


I stripped the face of mine and polished them then had my local body shop lacquer them to seal the surface and after 5 years there are a couple of tiny marks starting to come through but much better than diamond cut would have fared.

Link here

If you like the look of diamond cut, have you considered the Audi semi-Chrome finish?

I had an A4 courtesy car with wheels in semi-chrome and it has the gloss level of diamond-cut, albeit without the cut marks making an effect like a CD.

47p2 - Thanks for the comments. Looks like a great job you did on that wheel there. I might ask them if they can do a similar job for me.

Turbo Tony - I don't suppose you have an image of the "Audi semi-chrome finish"? I can't seem to find any on Google.

My A7 wheels are a chrome finish, which is shiny, but at 5 years old, they are looking a bit worse for wear, and that's a powder coat job to fix, possibly a specialist as a couple of places I've contacted are trying to push me to 'bright silver'

If you go down the clear-coat/lacquer route, you might want to consider this stuff. They claim it's able to adhere to highly polished surfaces:

http://www.frost.co.uk/por15-glisten...art-946ml.html

http://www.por15.com/Glisten-PC-High...oat_ep_75.html

I'm considering using it as an alternative to having my chrome/aluminium trim re-anodised.

I had my "show" 20" FE wheels diamond cut a few years back by Pristine in Milton Keynes, with the aim of getting them a close as possible to the OEM finish: that's not actually possible, given the way Audi shotblasted the side face of the spokes, but I was still very pleased with the finish (very few people would notice they're not OEM)



The complication with diamond cutting is that the finish is then more susceptible to surface damage than a regular "smooth" powder coat/clearcoat combination. To combat that issue, I then had a coating of MetalMate (http://www.metalmate.info/www.metalm...o/WELCOME.html) applied. This gets mixed reviews, but seems to have done the job pretty well.