Aluminum wheel refinishing. Best method?

[Pescatoral Pursuit]

Going from beautiful onyx AEV Salta XRs to something bronze.

Method 703s seems to be very popular but IMO the finish looks like unfinished brass. Other than that there's a lot of good choices out there but none are a satisfactory replacement for what I have in mind.

I LOVE my Saltas. They're classy. The onyx finish is rich, and, they're not on every other Jeep out there. So I've decided to refinish them in bronze. Herein lies the dilemma:
There's many options out there and not all of them are compatible with what the wheels encounter when I go off-road.
From what I've gathered this far, my options are:

Paint.
Hard anodizing.
Powder coating.
Peel paint.
Cerakoting.
Plasti-dip.

For those of you who have refinished your wheels them exposed them to the elements, what has been your experiences and recommendations? I need a finish worthy of these wheels and the great outdoors. I would also like to leave, sharp and intact, the factory etching.

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[mx5red]

If you’re not planning on scratching them (rock crawling) then my uneducated opinion would be powder coat.
My guess is anodizing and cerakote would be more money.
If scratching them I’d do paint so you can touch up yourself.

 

[staying_tuned]

X2 on the above. Had mine powder coated about 40k miles ago and they still look new. We don’t rock crawl but we do spend quite a bit of time off-road. Had my spare done too and even it still looks new.

 

[Pescatoral Pursuit]

X2 on the above. Had mine powder coated about 40k miles ago and they still look new. We don’t rock crawl but we do spend quite a bit of time off-road. Had my spare done too and even it still looks new.

Is there any laser etching on your wheels and if so how did it fair? From what I've read, powder coating doesn't work well with fine details.

 

[staying_tuned]

Not sure what may or may not be laser etched but here is a closeup in high res, took this just now. Also is a pic of my spare that I lowered down and cleaned for my listing. It takes a beating underneath even with the face pointed up but as you can see it still looks new.

 

[jac04]

This is from the AEV website:
Please note: As a general safety precaution, AEV does not recommend powder coating aluminum wheels. The heat range and duration of the powder coating process may overlap the heat treating and aging of cast or forged aluminum wheels. For this reason, powder coated wheels will not be covered under AEV’s lifetime structural warranty. All repairs and/or color changes should utilize automotive type liquid paint.

 

[Pescatoral Pursuit]

Yeah read that.
Powder coating is a very popular method of customizing wheels and you don't really hear that much about wheel failure related to it.

It's popular nowadays to pass off theoretic speculation as a real world problem, and in this case I'm not seeing the data back up the conjecture.

 

[jac04]

^^ There is no doubt that AEV is limiting their liability by advising not to powder coat their wheels. But, with that said, I'm not sure that you could find a powder coater that will provide a written guarantee that the powder coating process has no impact whatsoever on your aluminum alloy wheels.

 

[Pescatoral Pursuit]

But, with that said, I'm not sure that you could find a powder coater that will provide a written guarantee that the powder coating process has no impact whatsoever on your aluminum alloy wheels.

I wouldn't find it because that's not what I'm looking for.
I'm looking to get my wheels refinished. Not every wheel MFR has this specific disclaimer which makes me wonder if AEV feels theirs is an inferior product.

 

[Rusty PW]

Powder coats need between 350F to 400F to fully cure.

Some aluminum rims are aged, annealed, or heat treated. Depending on the manufacture. Aluminum starts to suffers a loss in strength with deterioration increasing over time. Above 200 °C (302F), the weakening is substantial, and is accompanied by some gain in ductility.

A flat faced rim like this will get damaged on the rocks. You should see my oem Rubi rims.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

This is from the AEV website:
Please note: As a general safety precaution, AEV does not recommend powder coating aluminum wheels. The heat range and duration of the powder coating process may overlap the heat treating and aging of cast or forged aluminum wheels. For this reason, powder coated wheels will not be covered under AEV’s lifetime structural warranty. All repairs and/or color changes should utilize automotive type liquid paint.

That's just plain weird because it's done daily to thousands of wheels.

Powder coating has come a long ways and there are also lower temperature powders.

This from a company that does wheels -

I'd ask a company that specializes in doing wheels, what temperatures they use and so on. The powder I use sets at 450 and cures at 400 - likely too hot for some things but then I'm not doing wheels.

From what I've seen, they seem to be more concerned about forged wheels vs. cast, and with certain alloys. I know a lot of shops do it, with lower temperature powders and you can find examples of good results all over the place.

 

[Pescatoral Pursuit]

Powder coats need between 350F to 400F to fully cure.

Some aluminum rims are aged, annealed, or heat treated. Depending on the manufacture. Aluminum starts to suffers a loss in strength with deterioration increasing over time. Above 200 °C (302F), the weakening is substantial, and is accompanied by some gain in ductility.

A flat faced rim like this will get damaged on the rocks. You should see my oem Rubi rims.

Rocks are hard to come by in these here parts.
And with the popularity of powder coating wheels, I'm still looking for the horror stories and failed broken wheel carcasses strewing the highways.

 

[Chief_jeep]

My wheels are powder coated. 18k miles on the rims and a fair amount of offroading and rock crawling. No issues whatsoever.

 

[Rusty PW]

Rocks are hard to come by in these here parts.
And with the popularity of powder coating wheels, I'm still looking for the horror stories and failed broken wheel carcasses strewing the highways.

I've had to beat dents out of aluminum rims on the trail before. Forged aluminum you can do that. Forget about doing that to a cast rim. I've seen more cast rims break than forged break. Mostly on 3/4 ton trucks doing stupid things. LOL

What I posted early about powder coating and temperature, was as a caution.

I have a few friends with powder coated rims with no issues. Others have painted with a poly clearcoat.

Rocks are not in short supply here.

 

[Pescatoral Pursuit]

I have a few friends with powder coated rims with no issues. Others have painted with a poly clearcoat.

Whose would you say is wearing/ looks better?

I bought my truck in Horsham and came very close to doing Rauch Creek straight from the dealer, lol.
This was before I came to find out there was only 2.5" of uptravel on factory suspension. Dodged a bullet there.

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