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Tip: paint for 370 alloys


sipar69

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Hope this might be useful to some members.........

 

Thanks to our lack of a driveway, my duff parking (especially that!) and the fact that I hate to see the Zs alloys with "rash" I've paid out to have wheels refurbished several times. This can cost anything from £50 to £100 per time.

 

I would never try to DIY repair a big or deep mark but it can be hard to justify the cost of a refurb for a small scrape or stone chips. I spent a long time looking for info on a colour match for the silver Rays until I got a tip from a refurbisher about VBF Silver. I've used this on a couple of small scrapes with very good results (by that I mean you have to be looking for the repair and look closely at the wheel to find it). I got mine here (as it's only for small marks, I don't use the aerosol - the 500mil tin is more than you'll ever need):

 

http://www.wheelpaints.co.uk/product_details_177.htm. :)

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Wonder if they fancy having a bash at making up the smoke colour for 40th Ann. and GTR owners :headhurt:

 

Everyone seems to struggle with this paint. I had a repair on my wheel done, while it is good I know it's there. I think someone else may not know it's there though.

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i have had look at the website, is it the 500ml silver solvent ?

 

Yes - the 500ml (the 400ml is an aerosol).

 

Or if you want to do a whole wheel you can go for the 1lt :lol:

 

You could probably use the aerosol if you wanted but it would require a lot of masking. I find the tin is good for very small scrapes because you can just use a small paint brush (like an artist's brush) to apply it. The paint is quite thick too, so it helps to hide any roughness (I'd recommend a very careful sanding of the damaged spot and some primer if the scrape has gone down into the metal).

 

I did once try to self-repair quite a long scrape and wasn't happy with results so ended up getting the wheel refurbished. As a general rule I'd say if you've got a mark bigger than a few inches or which goes deeply into the metal go for a refurb. Even then, the paint is useful if you want to make it look a better while you wait for the refurb to be done. :wave:

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i have had look at the website, is it the 500ml silver solvent ?

 

Yes - the 500ml (the 400ml is an aerosol).

 

Or if you want to do a whole wheel you can go for the 1lt :lol:

 

You could probably use the aerosol if you wanted but it would require a lot of masking. I find the tin is good for very small scrapes because you can just use a small paint brush (like an artist's brush) to apply it. The paint is quite thick too, so it helps to hide any roughness (I'd recommend a very careful sanding of the damaged spot and some primer if the scrape has gone down into the metal).

 

I did once try to self-repair quite a long scrape and wasn't happy with results so ended up getting the wheel refurbished. As a general rule I'd say if you've got a mark bigger than a few inches or which goes deeply into the metal go for a refurb. Even then, the paint is useful if you want to make it look a better while you wait for the refurb to be done. :wave:

 

So far..... after 10k miles I have avoided kerb scrapes, but I do have a few chips from removing the wheel nuts - some my doing some by others, but also a few chips caused by stones being thrown around in the wheels (I will blame Wales for that :lol: ). So looking forward to the pot of "wheelpaints" to arrive and raiding the toothpick jar ;)

 

But the design of the 370 wheels are certainly more difficult than the 350 Rays to do DIY fixes for kerb scrapes.

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i have had look at the website, is it the 500ml silver solvent ?

 

Yes - the 500ml (the 400ml is an aerosol).

 

Or if you want to do a whole wheel you can go for the 1lt :lol:

 

You could probably use the aerosol if you wanted but it would require a lot of masking. I find the tin is good for very small scrapes because you can just use a small paint brush (like an artist's brush) to apply it. The paint is quite thick too, so it helps to hide any roughness (I'd recommend a very careful sanding of the damaged spot and some primer if the scrape has gone down into the metal).

 

I did once try to self-repair quite a long scrape and wasn't happy with results so ended up getting the wheel refurbished. As a general rule I'd say if you've got a mark bigger than a few inches or which goes deeply into the metal go for a refurb. Even then, the paint is useful if you want to make it look a better while you wait for the refurb to be done. :wave:

 

So far..... after 10k miles I have avoided kerb scrapes, but I do have a few chips from removing the wheel nuts - some my doing some by others, but also a few chips caused by stones being thrown around in the wheels (I will blame Wales for that :lol: ). So looking forward to the pot of "wheelpaints" to arrive and raiding the toothpick jar ;)

 

But the design of the 370 wheels are certainly more difficult than the 350 Rays to do DIY fixes for kerb scrapes.

 

I try to avoid scrapes by parking on the driver's side (not always possible of course) and then carefully reversing towards the kerb from quite far out using the wing mirror to check my position. I'm sure the neighbours have a right laugh at me taking an age to park, but I don't care if it keeps the wheels in good nick. :)

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i have had look at the website, is it the 500ml silver solvent ?

 

Yes - the 500ml (the 400ml is an aerosol).

 

Or if you want to do a whole wheel you can go for the 1lt :lol:

 

You could probably use the aerosol if you wanted but it would require a lot of masking. I find the tin is good for very small scrapes because you can just use a small paint brush (like an artist's brush) to apply it. The paint is quite thick too, so it helps to hide any roughness (I'd recommend a very careful sanding of the damaged spot and some primer if the scrape has gone down into the metal).

 

I did once try to self-repair quite a long scrape and wasn't happy with results so ended up getting the wheel refurbished. As a general rule I'd say if you've got a mark bigger than a few inches or which goes deeply into the metal go for a refurb. Even then, the paint is useful if you want to make it look a better while you wait for the refurb to be done. :wave:

 

So far..... after 10k miles I have avoided kerb scrapes, but I do have a few chips from removing the wheel nuts - some my doing some by others, but also a few chips caused by stones being thrown around in the wheels (I will blame Wales for that :lol: ). So looking forward to the pot of "wheelpaints" to arrive and raiding the toothpick jar ;)

 

But the design of the 370 wheels are certainly more difficult than the 350 Rays to do DIY fixes for kerb scrapes.

 

I try to avoid scrapes by parking on the driver's side (not always possible of course) and then carefully reversing towards the kerb from quite far out using the wing mirror to check my position. I'm sure the neighbours have a right laugh at me taking an age to park, but I don't care if it keeps the wheels in good nick. :)

 

I suspect most of us do likewise - but I park on the passenger side when I can and have the pasenger mirror angled down so I can see the kerb by the wheel (saves adjusting the driver's mirror). I also put the steering on lock to use the tyre as a 'buffer' to find the kerb before final straightening. I'm touching wood as I write this :lol:

 

BTW the paint arrived today - good service but spent half an hour unpacking it and removing the sellotape round the lid :doh:

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Quite impressed with the paint match - not perfect, but I now have no nasty chips showing :thumbs:

 

Glad you found it useful mate. I agree it's not a perfect match, but with so little info available about the right colour for the Z's Rays it's good to have something that comes quite close (to my eyes anyway) B)

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