Wheel Refurb Ideas

[bodhi]

Howdy all. The 125i is coming up for 7 years and 100k in my ownership, and I have decided to mark the occasion by spending a little bit of cash on it. A combination of an irritating slow puncture that means I have to put 7 - 8 PSI in the front left tyre every Sunday, and the frankly sorry state of the rest of the wheels is making me look into wheel refurbs. Planning on getting them done later in the month when it goes in for an oil service, but now I'm at the fun bit, which is choosing what finish to go for

Car is a 2008 M-Sport in Titan Silver, and looks mostly like this:



Current wheels have obviously been badly refurbished in the past, as they look like this - this picture is a couple of years old and they haven't got any better:



The offending wheel with the leak in it looks like this:



So what colour do we think would work best - I'm not keen on Silver again (too dull) or Black (so two thousand and late), but was thinking of one of the BMW gunmetal finishes? So either Ferric Grey or - ideally - Shadow Chrome.

Anyone tried any of these finishes on an E82 and got any tips / ideas?

[Court_S]

I’d do orbit grey (that’s why the shadow edition cars came with). My old M140i with orbit grey wheels



My friend has just had the wheels on his silver 125i done in bronze. Looks pretty good too.

[Pica-Pica]

These are my 18” 398 style wheels on a silver 335d, next to that are 19” 442 style wheels which were powder coated (were originally diamond cut) in gunmetal grey. They were done at The Wheel Specialist in Cheshire, not particularly cheap, but an excellent job. The gunmetal grey will not show brake dust so much, which may be an extra consideration for you.

The individual wheel. Note, if you can see lines across the wheel spokes, that is simply a reflection of the white-beamed ceiling above.

Edited by Pica-Pica on Wednesday 2nd June 12:55

Edited by Pica-Pica on Wednesday 2nd June 12:58

[daver1184]

https://www.citywheelrefurbishment.co.uk/

Can't be beaten on price.
Great quality.
2 week waiting list right now..

[Olivergt]

Those prices are cheap!

I'm in the process of doing a rough refurb on mine myself and I must have spent the best part of £80.00 on paint.

Here in Ireland, it would be about €400 or so to get them powder coated.

Back on Topic, for me, I'm sticking with the std silver (Felgin Silver), on my Silver E46, to me it just looks right.

For you, there is a lovely silver grey they used on the E39 M5's (Chrome Shadow Paint?), which I think is a stunning colour.


https://www.m5board.com/threads/the-chrome-shadow-...

[d_a_n1979]

BMW ferric grey

[Olivergt]

I agree on the Ferric Grey, looks very nice on a Silver car.

[d_a_n1979]

Before I fitted them to my touring

[Pica-Pica]

Olivergt said:

Those prices are cheap!

I'm in the process of doing a rough refurb on mine myself and I must have spent the best part of £80.00 on paint.

Here in Ireland, it would be about €400 or so to get them powder coated.

Back on Topic, for me, I'm sticking with the std silver (Felgin Silver), on my Silver E46, to me it just looks right.

For you, there is a lovely silver grey they used on the E39 M5's (Chrome Shadow Paint?), which I think is a stunning colour.


https://www.m5board.com/threads/the-chrome-shadow-...

Mine were a similar price. I don’t see how those other prices can be a ‘proper job’.

[d_a_n1979]

If they get lots in then you can see how they'll drop the price, but does that mean a drop in quality too?

I paid £65 a corner for mine, fully stripped back, finished, powder coated, lacquered and then valves, tyres fitted & fully balanced

[Mr Tidy]

I'm not a fan of black wheels, but with a silver car I can see why you might want something other than silver!

In which case I think Shadow chrome would look great.

I just had a set done in Glitter Silver, same colour as OE but with a bit more sparkle, for £60 + VAT per wheel.

My car is Silver Grey - I was really tempted to go for Shadow Chrome, but if you scuff one they can't guarantee matching it so you're likely to need to get at least 2 refurbed.

[Pica-Pica]

Mr Tidy said:

I'm not a fan of black wheels, but with a silver car I can see why you might want something other than silver!

In which case I think Shadow chrome would look great.

I just had a set done in Glitter Silver, same colour as OE but with a bit more sparkle, for £60 + VAT per wheel.

My car is Silver Grey - I was really tempted to go for Shadow Chrome, but if you scuff one they can't guarantee matching it so you're likely to need to get at least 2 refurbed.

When I got mine done, see picture below, I was shown the ‘sparkly’ version, but no, not for me.
When I took mine in for a quote, they had a few racks of sample colours, and I selected one or two and they took them out next to my car and then I chose.

[g3org3y]

bodhi said:

So what colour do we think would work best - I'm not keen on Silver again (too dull) or Black (so two thousand and late), but was thinking of one of the BMW gunmetal finishes? So either Ferric Grey or - ideally - Shadow Chrome.

Boom boom pow!

Is Shadow Chrome the OE finish on the E39 M5 alloys?

[Court_S]

g3org3y said:

Boom boom pow!

Is Shadow Chrome the OE finish on the E39 M5 alloys?

I believe it was. Looks ace too.

[bodhi]

g3org3y said:

Boom boom pow!

Is Shadow Chrome the OE finish on the E39 M5 alloys?

Couldn't resist a South Park reference

Yes they are, and it was ogling my friends "new" Titan Silver E39 M5 that kicked this whole conversation off

Thanks for all your suggestions though folks, much food for thought, I think so far I've decided:

Orbit Grey - Looks stunning on the Shadow Editions M140i's, not 100% sure if they won't look too dark without the Shadow Edition "Highlights"? I have the BMW Performance Grille fitted, but the rest is as standard. Possible on this one.

Shadow Chrome - still my favourite BMW finish, however a bit of digging suggests they may be a pain to keep looking good and I'm not 100% sure who they'd work on the E8x generation, probable second choice I'd say so far.

Ferric Grey / Gunmetal - I'd say this is in pole position so far, that E39 Dan posted earlier in the thread looks stunning, and just the finish I am looking for. Will hide break dust well as mentioned, and look similar to the finish on the E82 Sport Plus runout models.

Going to call my guy later on as the TPS has just triggered again so the leak is getting worse, will hopefully get it in early next week, so I just have a couple of quick questions:

1) What finish came on the standard M140i (pre Shadow Edition)? As I've found this on babybmw, which looks about perfect:

https://www.babybmw.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&a...

2) I get this questions is "how long is a piece of string", but is it worth budgeting for the fact the leak may be unfixeable and I'll need a new alloy?

[Court_S]

bodhi said:

Couldn't resist a South Park reference

Yes they are, and it was ogling my friends "new" Titan Silver E39 M5 that kicked this whole conversation off

Thanks for all your suggestions though folks, much food for thought, I think so far I've decided:

Orbit Grey - Looks stunning on the Shadow Editions M140i's, not 100% sure if they won't look too dark without the Shadow Edition "Highlights"? I have the BMW Performance Grille fitted, but the rest is as standard. Possible on this one.

Shadow Chrome - still my favourite BMW finish, however a bit of digging suggests they may be a pain to keep looking good and I'm not 100% sure who they'd work on the E8x generation, probable second choice I'd say so far.

Ferric Grey / Gunmetal - I'd say this is in pole position so far, that E39 Dan posted earlier in the thread looks stunning, and just the finish I am looking for. Will hide break dust well as mentioned, and look similar to the finish on the E82 Sport Plus runout models.

Going to call my guy later on as the TPS has just triggered again so the leak is getting worse, will hopefully get it in early next week, so I just have a couple of quick questions:

1) What finish came on the standard M140i (pre Shadow Edition)? As I've found this on babybmw, which looks about perfect:

https://www.babybmw.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&a...

2) I get this questions is "how long is a piece of string", but is it worth budgeting for the fact the leak may be unfixeable and I'll need a new alloy?

Pretty sure the none Shadow Edition cars were supplied with Ferric Grey II wheels; that was the colour for my wing mirror and canards. The 35i cars had Ferric Grey which is a different paint code.

[bodhi]

Court_S said:

Pretty sure the none Shadow Edition cars were supplied with Ferric Grey II wheels; that was the colour for my wing mirror and canards. The 35i cars had Ferric Grey which is a different paint code.

Perfect, thank you for that

Car is booked in for the 14th for a service and the wheel refurb. Just need to tell the chap what colour I want, he will pick the car up, drop off a courtesy car, then go get the work done and bring it back. Ferric Grey is currently leading based on what I've seen, but still lots of pics out there to look at

[d_a_n1979]

bodhi said:

Court_S said:

Pretty sure the none Shadow Edition cars were supplied with Ferric Grey II wheels; that was the colour for my wing mirror and canards. The 35i cars had Ferric Grey which is a different paint code.

Perfect, thank you for that

Car is booked in for the 14th for a service and the wheel refurb. Just need to tell the chap what colour I want, he will pick the car up, drop off a courtesy car, then go get the work done and bring it back. Ferric Grey is currently leading based on what I've seen, but still lots of pics out there to look at

Another of mine, more side on and not in brilliant sunshine:



And a front quarter shot:



You know it's the right colour to go for My touring in TitanSilberMetallic too

[MrC986]

daver1184 said:

https://www.citywheelrefurbishment.co.uk/

Can't be beaten on price.
Great quality.
2 week waiting list right now..

I had a set of wheels done by the company in the link last year & for the price they were ok (about a 7 out of 10) although they don’t mask the back of the hub/remove the powder coat which is an issue as well as taking at least 1 week for the lower cost priced refurb plus extra for tyre removal/refit.

[TheGinger1]

Have you checked whether it is a slow puncture or a crack before going too far down this route? The only reason I ask is I had a very slow puncture on (I think) the same style rim on my E91 330i and it turned out to be a cracked rim rather than a puncture.