I need advice

First the background. I collected my car on 23rd Dec and not long after put a set of winter wheels and tyres on the car. The original wheels had done about 700 miles when they were removed and I put them straight into my garage without a second thought.

Now that the temperature is improving I dug out my original wheels to give them a good clean and some polish before going back on the car for summer. The wheels are Shadow Chrome.

On inspection during the clean and polish I've noticed that every spoke on every wheel has bubbles in the paint finish. There are also one or two bubbles of paint on the rim on the back of the wheel. The front of the wheels are good but there are one or two bubbles across all the wheels on the front face. These bubbles are tiny, maybe 2-3mm max but I can see these failing and causing the paint to peel over a short period of time. In fact one or two bubbles have come off while cleaning and so the primer underneath is now visible.

Is this something I should take back to the dealership or am I being too fussy? Has anyone else who like me has removed their wheels noticed similar? Is this a problem just with the Shadow Chrome.

Example of the problem:-

It's always worth a visit to the dealer to point it out, they can only decline to replace them but you can ask them to add that you are concerned to the vehicles computerised history incase you have to make a claim later

Are these on the inside of the rim, or the outward facing side? If on the back side, there may be no need for concern. If outward side, I would request a replacement.

(19-03-2012 05:45pm)JackMac Wrote:  Are these on the inside of the rim, or the outward facing side? If on the back side, there may be no need for concern. If outward side, I would request a replacement.

They're on the inside but on every spoke on every wheel. This isn't an isolated piece of blistering. Why should I not be concerned? to my mind the inside of the wheel takes far more punishment than the outside with brake heat, dust, water etc. I think that the finish is going to break down much quicker than it would if the paint were not blistered. The fact that they're on the edges of the spokes means that any failure is quickly going to spread round to the face of the wheel. They're shadow chrome which means they'll be almost unrepairable.

It seems simple to me, straight round to
dealer and request they are changed. It makes
no difference whether on outside or inside. It is
quite clearly a warranty issue. You won't have any trouble.
Get down there and let us know how you get on.

(19-03-2012 07:01pm)mywillia Wrote:  They're shadow chrome which means they'll be almost unrepairable.

I've seen this posted on here before, and its just not true.
All it means is that the person that does it has to know what they're doing, and how to layer the paint properly.

(20-03-2012 09:53am)mickydd Wrote:  It seems simple to me, straight round to
dealer and request they are changed. It makes
no difference whether on outside or inside. It is
quite clearly a warranty issue. You won't have any trouble.
Get down there and let us know how you get on.

Whats with the Blue lights in your grill ?

Speary. I work for the fire service, so get to use the blue lights on the way to a job.
Lucky me!

(20-03-2012 09:46pm)mickydd Wrote:  Speary. I work for the fire service, so get to use the blue lights on the way to a job.
Lucky me!

Cool, I'll bet they are handy on the motorway