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I'll be painting my wheels here in a few weeks, and I've got some mild curb rash on my front driver side wheel.

Now, these are just stockers and they are going to be my winter wheels, so I'm not worried about them looking pristine. However, I would like to know if there is anything I can do to clean these up a little bit. I own a dremel and a cordless drill, but that's about it when it comes to power tools.



(Please pardon the water spots, it rained yesterday. I wash my car, I promise!)

well the curb rash on the lip doesent look to bad you could prolly wet sand it down to be a little bit smoother it would be easiest to have the tire off on that one so you can sand it good and the rock chips you can do the same thing just wet sand them out my buddie had the same problem on some sti bbs rims that we painted black and they turned damn neer perfect looking

Someone showed me this link, which really helped a lot. I just need to figure out how to get my tire off/get the car home/secure a ride for a day or two so I have enough time to wet sand/bondo it properly. Ha.

nice just be careful with the bondo it can be your friend and then it can turn on you i say just wet sand the whole rim down anyways and not have to deal with bondo plus the best paint job all lies in the prep of the item being painted

Yup. I've been looking at painting DIY threads as well. I plan on wetsanding inbetween each step.

bondo that ish, then sand it down and you'll be good to go. Get the aluminum/wheel bondo or whatever it's called

Did you ever get post pics of the finished product?

Bondo will not adhere properly to your wheel, it won't stay on. Especially because the tire is giong to be putting pressure on the bondo. You're best bet is to get the tire off, and sand it with some 180 or heavier grit sand paper to get it somewhat smooth, then move to a lighter grit.

If you get "metal" body filler, it's going to adhere better, but it is a paint in the butt to sand. But because the tire is going to be flexing and putting pressure right where the body filler is at on the wheel, it's probably not going to stay on.

axleon, I haven't done it yet. :) I haven't had any time to sit down and do it, and it's too cold right now anyways, ha.

There's no pressure on the wheel at that point. It's far enough on the outer lip, and small enough, that the tire isn't going to touch it.

The pressure pushing out on the bead (i think) or lip is enough that it will crack the body filler. Plus your wheels go through alot more than the body of the car (heating up, rotating around, bumps, etc), its enough to crack the body filler so that it might fall off.

I just thought I'd let you know. I'd personally just smooth it out as best as possible and leave it, if it bothers you that much. It doesn't look that bad imo :)

Eh. It's not on the bead, it's on the very, very edge of the wheel. Kind of hard to see in the picture. When I get around to it, I'll smooth it out, and try the filler. It's small enough that if it cracks, I doubt I'll even notice. If not, I guess it won't look much worst than it already is. :)

haha alright. I might be able to get you a discount on some metal body filler, just lmk.