MerlintheMad
10000 Posts Club!
My first winter with my Stinger is nearing its end. I've kept the OEM rims throughout; put Nitto Motivo UHP A/S tires on at the beginning of the winter weather.
I wonder if the lack of the Michelin "V" ridge that protrudes beyond the rim has contributed to what I just noticed hugely this morning.: "rash", all on the left side.
Of course, this only means that the car wash guide rail has scraped my slowly turning left side rims. You can see that the damage does not extend higher on the spokes than can be accounted for by the height of the guide rail. Shit. These pics are all of the LR rim; it's worse than the LF rim for some reason: probably a quirk of the conveyor keeps the front slightly away from the guide rail, while pulling the rear wheel against it. Shit.
This was my most untouched rim until this happened. I don't know when it happened. I only know that I had my car in Magic Clean the last two days in a row. It looks like some idjit caught the end of the guide rail with my rim at least once. The rest is just rolling attrition damage. Shit.
Anyway! Enough of that.
Here's the dilemma: no matter where I go there are bad reviews. Someone sooner or later is going to rash my rims on the guide rail side (left side) again; and after I have my wheels flipped, the other rims can join in the pain. I have to have the underside of my car cleaned thoroughly and often or else salt deposits will accumulate: this is by far the first priority, hands down, no argument. Period. So going somewhere to get the underside sprayed out is inescapable.
At this point I am thinking of buying spiff "summer" rims and putting my Michelins on them, and as soon as I know the salt on our roads has diminished enough, swap out the OEM rims and Motivos for the summer tires and new rims that will NEVER see the inside of a car wash ever in my life. Just as soon as the salt goes on the roads next winter, out come the Motivos on the OEM rims and they can get carved up some more: at least they will mostly look pretty good for a winter ordeal: I can sandpaper and wet sand them down enough to look even better: this job a few days ago took all of fifteen, twenty minutes. Passes the "five feet away" test. For winter, that has to be good enough for my high performance daily driver! (LF, curb rash, my fault; the left side of my car hates me
)
Before I thought of a second, "summer" set of wheels, I figured I'd just have to suck it up at the end of each winter, take my rims to a wheel restoration outfit and get them looking pretty again: for several/many hundreds of dollars. I'm not in love with the OEM GT rims that much! I'd rather just go over them myself for free, and replace them when the winter war is over.
Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.
I wonder if the lack of the Michelin "V" ridge that protrudes beyond the rim has contributed to what I just noticed hugely this morning.: "rash", all on the left side.
Of course, this only means that the car wash guide rail has scraped my slowly turning left side rims. You can see that the damage does not extend higher on the spokes than can be accounted for by the height of the guide rail. Shit. These pics are all of the LR rim; it's worse than the LF rim for some reason: probably a quirk of the conveyor keeps the front slightly away from the guide rail, while pulling the rear wheel against it. Shit.
This was my most untouched rim until this happened. I don't know when it happened. I only know that I had my car in Magic Clean the last two days in a row. It looks like some idjit caught the end of the guide rail with my rim at least once. The rest is just rolling attrition damage. Shit.
Anyway! Enough of that.
Here's the dilemma: no matter where I go there are bad reviews. Someone sooner or later is going to rash my rims on the guide rail side (left side) again; and after I have my wheels flipped, the other rims can join in the pain. I have to have the underside of my car cleaned thoroughly and often or else salt deposits will accumulate: this is by far the first priority, hands down, no argument. Period. So going somewhere to get the underside sprayed out is inescapable.
At this point I am thinking of buying spiff "summer" rims and putting my Michelins on them, and as soon as I know the salt on our roads has diminished enough, swap out the OEM rims and Motivos for the summer tires and new rims that will NEVER see the inside of a car wash ever in my life. Just as soon as the salt goes on the roads next winter, out come the Motivos on the OEM rims and they can get carved up some more: at least they will mostly look pretty good for a winter ordeal: I can sandpaper and wet sand them down enough to look even better: this job a few days ago took all of fifteen, twenty minutes. Passes the "five feet away" test. For winter, that has to be good enough for my high performance daily driver! (LF, curb rash, my fault; the left side of my car hates me
) Before I thought of a second, "summer" set of wheels, I figured I'd just have to suck it up at the end of each winter, take my rims to a wheel restoration outfit and get them looking pretty again: for several/many hundreds of dollars. I'm not in love with the OEM GT rims that much! I'd rather just go over them myself for free, and replace them when the winter war is over.
Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.
