Chrome wheels on 2002 Lexus L S 430


Outside of buying new wheels do you have a remady for the chrome pealing off of the wheels and the tires adhearing to the rims?

Check with your local custom wheel shop, my local guy has a service where he machines the bead area of the rims and removes the chrome where it comes in contact with the tires.

There is none. You have an adhesion problem between the flashing and the chromeplate. These kinds of problems are caused by issues such as inadequate venting of the baths, improper cleaning, inadequate maintenance of the baths, improper agitation, imroper cathode voltage,…adhesion problems cannot be corrected once the chrome is on without stripping of the finish and reprocessing. And even then, the stripping chemicals may leave the base material too porous to replate successfully.

Even good quality chrome wheels (if there is such a thing) have a short life due to corrosion in the bead area. That is why you normally don’t see OE chrome wheel on high end cars (other than the obvious reasons).

Yeah, I’m surprised Lexus used them on the LS. I’ve noticed Cadillacs and Lincolns with them too. Perhaps they’re plating steel, which has far fewer problems than plating alloys. I haven’t really looked closely.

My local wheel guy (who I use for powder coating) is very anti-chrome because of the corrosion issues. I just don’t like the “pimp my ride” look. He’s the one who re-machines the rims to get them to seal correctly (but that doesn’t help if there’s cosmetic damage).

Powder coating! Now THAT is a bulletproof wheel!

It seems to hold up better than paint on alloys.

Yup. A company I worked for some years back made industrial filtration systems. The filters themselves were often exposed to extreme environments. We powder coated the housings, and they stayed looking brand new even after many years in the field.