Wheel refurb / powder coating

Looking to get all 4 wheels powder coated, have narrowed my options down to the following places:

Wheeltex, Portsmouth - http://www.wheeltex.co.uk/

The Alloy Clinic, Farnham - https://thealloyclinic.co.uk/

DW Wheels, Gosport - https://www.dwwheels.com/

MyAlloys, Basingstoke - https://myalloys.co.uk/

All have excellent 5/5 reviews, so can't see me having an issue with any but thought even better if someone on here can provide a recent recommendation.
Can't seem to make contact with DW Wheels through phone or e-mail though, so may just be between the other 3. Has anyone used any of these recently with excellent results?


Somewhere I won't be using, and for others reference if they're ever considering them:

The Wheel Specialist, Fareham - used these before, wheels were very averagely refurbished, lots of orange peel. Lots of other bad experiences from fellow petrol heads

Thanks in advance

Some interesting further reading re The Wheel Specialist at Fareham, which also contains some better suggestions.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Thats fair enough. Shame if standards have slipped. I last used them in 2021 for the wheels on my wife’s S2000. They still look fresh and shiny!

Who did you go with in the end? I’m looking to get my 911 wheels done and TWS had been recommended.

I used my alloys 2-3 times and they were always ok - just needed to be booked plenty in advance

Ah interesting - thanks for feeding back. I did e-mail them and they said the same about ordering specific colours etc. But you can't really beat popping by for an enquiry in advance if you're local as you get more of a feel for the place. If you're planning on getting your wheels done soon do feed back with who you ended up going with and the results as it'll likely be another month or two before I get mine done.

Wheels were done last week. Looks like a good job to me.

They found a slight crack which they welded up before they did it to ensure it was well covered. I've had a close look at all the wheels and I'm very happy.

I dropped it off Monday morning at around 10 and picked it up around 2pm on Wednesday. No charge for storing the car.

They also found the new centre caps I bought didn't quite fit, so they ended up painting my old ones instead which they did free of charge.

Is it a secure unit etc and they store the car inside?
The wheels look fantastic and a quick turnaround too. You may have sold them to me

I've been meaning to update this, but have only just got round to it.

Well. I had an absolutely awful experience with Wheeltex. Dropped the car off, seemed ok, but quite a small set up on an industrial estate. Requested that my car could be stored in the unit and was told that wouldn't be a problem. Agreed a turnaround time of 2 days.

A day and a half in, I get a phone call to say the wheels are taking longer than expected, could I come 24 hours later. No problem, as long as they are done right.

A day later I get another phone call to say that they aren't happy with the finish, and can I come a couple of days later instead as they need to do the whole process again... Starting to worry a little bit now - a place with hundreds of 5* reviews - why are they struggling to refurb my wheels? Nothing out of the ordinary, just going for an OEM Audi finish.

Finally get a phone call to say they are ready, so I head down after work. Sadly this was back in March time so it was pretty dark by the time I got there. Had a look over the wheels as best as I could in the lighting that was present. They looked "ok" but I pointed out a few minor imperfections to the owner to which he replied "the age of the wheels mean those are just to be expected". Tired and not wanting to question any more, or wait for another 3 days for them to be done again with an hour of travel each way, I paid and left.

On the drive home, I noticed that I had awful wheel wobble at around 60mph - something I didn't have before I dropped the car off. The next morning in the daylight, I had a proper look at the wheels and was amazed at what I found.

Firstly, no wheel weights had been put back on any of the wheels! Secondly, well, I'll let the pictures do the talking.









This is just a selection, there were marks and imperfections all over each wheel. I called Wheeltex to explain. The wheel weight was put down to "they must have flown off" and the imperfections were still apparently due to the age of the wheels... !

Once I provided all of the pictures though, it was clear this was nothing age related and in fact, just an awful job. I had to semi-pursue using a chargeback with my bank but in the end did get a refund for the refurb element. I was still out of pocket for the journeys there and back, tyre disposal and valve replacement though - so even with the refund, the service and inconvenience left a sour taste.

In the end I went to MyAlloys, which is where I should have gone originally. They confirmed the age related stuff was a load of rubbish, and finished the wheels perfectly. They also confirmed that the wrong lacquer had been used, meaning the colour was completely out and that each wheel had been damaged by Wheeltex when they removed the old valves.

Here's a picture after they were refurbed by MyAlloys.



Did I just get unlucky? Wheeltex's reviews suggest I did. But I was, and still am, astounded that a place this highly rated would try to pull the wool over my eyes with all of the above stuff about the wheels being too old, or wheel weights that magically all fly off at the same time, and so on! Rather than just be transparent and say we're struggling with these wheels, for whatever reason, they bodged the job and still charged for it like they were finished perfectly. Based on my experience I would absolutely avoid them. Conversely, I would highly recommend MyAlloys who were incredibly professional from start to finish.