Each to their own fella, but personally I wouldn't spend £100's having my wheels refurbished then scrimp on the centre caps by having them painted, they'll never be as good as the originals look in my opinion. I bought cheap imported centre caps when I had my 20's done for around £60, if I'd known at the time I could have bought a set of OEM caps for less than twice that price I'd have bought them instead.

Good luck whichever route you choose +++

As above, I've tried all 3 approaches, so now have 3 sets of FE centres!

1. Repainted refurbished OEM ones, done by me. Fully dismantled to do it but just not really that great and now starting to peel. Might do them again now I know how.
2. Cheap Chinese copies. Never fitted properly (lugs are wrong!) though I finally found a solution to that but just have my doubts on how secure they are. Don't look too bad though the metal section is shoddy and "rippled".
3. Proper OEM ones bought a few months ago, the "brushed" variant to match my updated diamond-cut wheels. A set of 4 cost me £165 delivered.

I expect that day-to-day I'll run with set #1, swapping set #2 on when parked up and the car is clean.
Set #3 will only appear at "special events" such as car shows, Forum meets etc. and not go on any long/dirty journeys. :tuttut:

Hi Andrew
"Might do them again now I know how."
Did you do your Avus caps or just the FE ones??

My Avus caps are shocking. Here's one:
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1485517775
I too am contemplating getting my 18" wheels refurbished but when I enquired with the refurbishing company about painting the caps along with the wheels, I could tell that they weren't interested. So I thought I would look at a cap to see how it was "made up" and found that it was easy to split into 4 parts with the main part being the one that required two different colours of paint - the gunmetal centre and the Avus Z17 silver outer.
But I then started to think about whether my home-painted caps would match the final finish of the refurbed wheels? Would I need lacquer/clearcoat on the caps and if so, what type (if there are different types??)? How durable would they be? Would they look tatty after the first stone hit them?

I did find a complete new set on Allegro that would be about £72 + shipping but the Polish seller bluntly told me he would not ship to the UK :(
I found out he would ship to Russia etc. but not the UK. A Brexit thing maybe?
That was about the limit of what I wanted to pay for a new set. I think I was looking at about £125 elsewhere for a new set of 4 and that just didn't sit well with a pauper like me, for 4 bits of plastic (Yeah, I know! So why I am the owner of D2 with that mentality, is what you're thinking :ROFL:).

So do you have any advice on painting your caps now that you are a past master? +++

I have only refurbished FE caps, not the 18" Facelift Avus ones (which are generally cheaper as well as more robust).
They are probably easier though as it's just plastic components to prise apart before painting.

I'm sure I paid <£100 for a set of four Avus centre caps from TPS. IMO its just not worth the hassle of painting them yourself for that, especially taking them apart and then having nice fresh paint on some parts, but scuffed Audi rings etc etc.

If you're getting wheels refurbed, buy the caps first and then you can make sure the refurber has a reference for the paint finish :)

The only time I'd ask a pro to do centre caps is if I'm changing from the OE wheel colour, and in that case I'd dismantle them first so they just have to prep and paint.

I was looking on the TPS site yesterday evening. I hear it mentioned here a lot but I am not familiar with them.
Firstly it looks as though you have to be in the trade to buy from them, and secondly when I did a search for the part number it came up blank.
Do you need to be in the trade to buy from them?
And do you think that most of their stuff isn't on the website so you would need to call/call in and query things with them?

Yeah they are technically trade only, although some branches will deal with the public. They were set up as a subsidiary of VAG in the UK in order to compete with the aftermarket like EuroCarParts and GSF, and so the parts counters in the dealerships became internal or public facing and all the trade moved to TPS.

Most of the time I just call them with a shopping list of part numbers, which saves them having to look things up like they do for all-makes garages who call and ask for part X for model Y. I'm not aware of any online ordering facility if they have such a thing, but chances are you'd need a trade account anyway.

If you go in to your local branch knowing exactly what you want, and with part numbers if possible you may find they're happy enough to deal with you, but they may send you to the dealership instead. Tbh I don't know how TPS's retail prices compare with the dealerships - they may be the same, in which case its all irrelevant! :D

Thanks, I shall give the Northampton branch a call to see if they deal with the public then to see what they charge.

Update:
They will deal with me at the trade counter.
Unfortunately the caps are £38.50 each, so £154 for a set. Bummer :(

Well I guess we know what retail price is for them now :rolleyes:

We sure do :D
No more guessing.
I'm working on the Polish seller on Allegro to see if I can bend his ear to ship to the UK.
He sells all types (inc. FE) of caps for Audi wheels at quite reasonable prices.
I'll reply if I get anywhere with him, just in case anyone else is wanting to replace their wheel caps without feeling as though they've had their leg lifted.