Chrome Plated Wheels: Technical questions answered

A. Hi Patrick.

1. As a minimum the aluminum wheels are zincated, then either copper or electroless nickel plated or both, then electrolytic nickel plated (often two or more layers like semi-bright followed by bright), then chrome plated.

2. It's always nickel plating followed by chrome plating. Chrome plating does not impart reflectivity and shine, the nickel does that. The chrome adds a slightly bluish cast, as opposed to the slightly yellowish cast of nickel; it prevents the nickel from tarnishing, and it contributes symbiotically to the corrosion resistance.

3. The nickel plating is not porous and will not allow absorption of water.

4. Plating, done properly, does not significantly reduce fatigue stress.

5. The plating is not spot-repairable in the event of a scratch or curb rash. Nickel-chrome plating is a barrier-layer type of plating, it does nor protect the substrate if it gets scratched. Quite the opposite: if there is a scratch, the exposed aluminum and the nickel plating comprise a powerful corrosion battery that will cause the aluminum to pit and/or erupt in ugly little corrosion pimples/volcanos.

It costs about as much to plate wheels as to buy a new set, maybe more. That is because the original wheels were plated in large batches involving very little labor per wheel. When four or less wheels are done at a time, it takes a great deal of manual labor per wheel as the process involves many many cleaning, polishing, and plating steps and many of these steps have to be carefully tailored to the exact shape of the wheel. Usually special jigs & fixtures must be built to get chrome plating down into the recesses of he specific wheel design. It's usually rather impractical to custom chrome plate alloy rims.

We have an "Introduction to Chrome Plating" that you may find interesting.

Good luck.

A. Hello again. As for life expectancy, let's go off-track for a moment and talk bumpers first: An OEM quality nickel-chrome plated bumper lasts about as long as the painted body parts of the car or truck, sometimes a little longer, sometimes a little less. So, nickel-chrome plating is a very permanent finish that can last decades. If you had steel 'chrome reverse wheels', that might be the end of the story.

But the majority of fancy wheels today are cast aluminum alloy. This is very difficult to plate well, both because aluminum is inherently very difficult to plate reliably for electrochemical reasons, and because the casting alloy is very low quality aluminum with a lot of silicon and other tramp materials that make reliable plating even more difficult. So the odds are good that the bonding of the plating to the casting is poor in at least a spot or two, which will become apparent in use over a few years, revealing itself as peeling. If you viewed our chrome plating FAQ, you saw several examples of this peeling problem. If I were a consumer, I would not buy chrome wheels without a true replacement guarantee, and if I were the seller I might not offer one :-(

Plus, is it really possible to keep from touching a curb day after day, year after year? The aluminum is very soft and will gouge, breaking the plating, and even if the damage is very slight, no repair to the plating is possible and the wheel is history as far as nice appearance.

Regarding your second question, the nickel is self leveling and highly reflective. The nickel plating imparts "specularity", a mirror finish. The chrome reduces tarnishing of the nickel and is a bluer color, but it follows the smooth mirrored surface imparted by the nickel plating. I didn't mean to imply that you see the color of the nickel through the chrome, but that you see the mirror smoothness and shine.

A. Hi Lauren, and thanks for the kind words. Any suggestion can raise the possibility that you simply will not like the appearance but ... The most durable wheels are probably painted steel wheels (like on Cherokees, not Grand Cherokees). Second most durable is probably chrome plated steel wheels (pretty much out of fashion). Third may be plain aluminum wheels with a clearcoat (common on Grand Cherokees). Most troublesome of all is chrome plated aluminum.

The problems with chrome plated aluminum wheels are many. Even high quality aluminum is very difficult to electroplate because aluminum is an extremely active metal that instantly forms an oxide skin, and you can't plate oxides. So the first step is always a zincate replacement process, which lacks the adhesion of electroplating. You'll frequently see the plating just peel off of aluminum wheels whereas you very rarely see plating peel off of steel. Although this peeling is a manufacturing defect, the manufacturer will often try to blame it on the customer. Also, the wheels are pressure cast, not machined; and because they are castings they have tramp ingredients in them like silicon, making the plating even more unreliable.

Look at the warranty. Few manufacturers will guarantee them more than a year, and even then they are not guaranteed against road salt. Would you buy a car that had only a 1-year guarantee and an exclusion if you drove in the snow? It's ludicrous. But I doubt you'll find a long term all inclusive guarantee on chrome plated aluminum wheels because it's just too difficult to plate them perfectly.

Finally, corrosion forces are working against you. As noted, aluminum is a very active metal. If you put noble metals like nickel and chrome on aluminum and then allow even the tiniest perforation or porosity in the coating, you have a powerful corrosion battery where galvanic forces will cause the aluminum to corrode quickly.

Chrome plated aluminum wheels are beautiful like flowers ... and about as delicate :-)

A. That sounds like a good plan, Jim.

A. Hi Thomas. Some experienced people suggest never sandblasting aluminum because it's just too soft. I believe it would be possible to blast the chrome and nickel off of the aluminum wheels without significantly damaging them in theory, but they are often so intricate that the job could be tedious and time consuming. So I believe chemical stripping is more practical. But that's just book knowledge talking -- I haven't actually done it or been involved in doing it.

Still, remember that these wheels are pressure castings, not billet aluminum. Because of this, and the unavoidable silicon and other tramp ingredients in pressure castings, I think you'll never get them to polish up and shine quite like pure billet aluminum. Sorry.

A. I think you should replace all four or all five wheels. This doesn't sound like an aesthetic issue to me; it sounds life-threatening in the event that the corrosion proceeds differently on another wheel, or if you hit road debris at high speed resulting in an instantaneous blowout through the barrel of the rim.

I would suggest that you write to the corporation and request replacement wheels. If there is no response then report it to the NTSB and Consumer Reports. If they feel there is an actual life hazard, they will know what to do. Recalls make corporations more responsive to consumer complaints about safety issues. Good luck.

!! I also have a problem with the wheels on a 2003 Dodge Caravan anniversary edition. Slow leaks for two years, always checking tire pressure. Took the wheels off to check the brakes and wash the wheels and was surprised by the amount of decay, corrosion on the inside of the wheel. Looks to me like the coating over the aluminum is capturing the salt and water, creating a concentrated corrosion spot. The coating is also falling off around the rim bead, where the slow leaks are coming from (soap test).I have contacted NTSB, state consumer protection and many other agency I am waiting for forms. Does me no good, now I have to replace the wheels before the tires.I have 59,000 miles on the car. If you hear anything on this problem please let me know. Thanks,

Q. Hi, and thanks for the very informative info. My 2002 Acura rims need replacing. All four aluminum wheel rims have been cleaned and resealed over a period of more than a year, and the slow leaks in my tires persist. My car is garage kept and I don't quite understand how even after the resealing the corrosion keeps returning.
What's a fair price for replacing the rims?
thanks for any advice.
Pat

A. Hi. If the rims are plated on their face and not elsewhere, Pat, you have dissimilar metals exposed and will have an increased corrosion rate for the aluminum.

Apologies, but we can't discuss prices on this site, you would need to get multiple quotes to decide.

Good luck.

Regards,

Q. A year ago I bought a used 2005 Buick LeSabre and almost immediately had rim-tire seal problems. Three times in one year (with mileage between 42,000 and 50,000) I've had to have the tires removed and the rims cleaned inside, and tires re-mounted. After fighting it for a year, and not trusting to drive the car especially here in Northern North Dakota with wintertime temps at minus 30...I was told by our local service center that I need new rims.
Is this a manufacturing fault, should I report it, the dealer says, "We've never heard of this before", and wants to sell me a new set for just under 3K.
Should I trust our service shop and replace them, or can they be "saved" somehow? Please advise. Thanks

Q. Back in the olden days when I worked in a service centre (Canadian Tire) one way we got around the leaking bead is to put a tube in the tire. Don't know if this done much anymore, though.

My question, though, is what causes chrome plating to pit whether it is on steel or any other material? How can a person retard or even prevent this process?

A. Hi, Mark.

A dry cell battery is comprised of two different metals with a conductive glop in between them. One of the two metals is more "active" than the other (the other one is said to be more "noble"). The more active metal dissolves into the glop as positively charged ions. I don't want to spend multiple paragraphs explaining why this generates electricity, when that's not what you asked, but it does.

Any time you have two different metals metallically connected together and with a conductive solution (like salty water) between them, the more active metal corrodes, while the noble metal doesn't. Sacrificial zinc anodes on steel boats, and zinc plating or galvanizing on steel bolts are used to protect the steel that way.

If you have nickel-chrome plating on steel or aluminum, and the steel or aluminum is exposed to the environment through tiny pinholes, you have such a battery, but in this case since nickel is more noble than steel or aluminum, the base metal will dissolve at that pinhole. Over time it will look like a bunch of miniature volcanos, with the steel or aluminum continuing to corrode underneath each pinhole, the corrosion accelerated by the battery that has been formed.

Constant cleaning and waxing is probably the best you can do. Clearcoats tend to not stick very well to chrome, but you can try them.

Regards,

A. Hi, Greg. I've never heard of such a thing. My wild guess is that they are speaking of bright nickel, which was somewhere abbreviated as Br. Nickel, and then somebody tried to pronounce Br. :-)

Regards,

A. Hi, Jane. Your dealer sounds more reasonable than most. We have several threads here where a dealer is rejecting the claim that the peeling is a manufacturing defect even though so many chrome platers know that it is.

As for pitting, nothing lasts forever and aluminum is not particularly robust in a salty environment. So the rims are going to pit and corrode at some point and it's a question of whether 3 years is a reasonable life. I doubt that calcium chloride is more corrosive than sodium chloride.

Good luck in your claim that the county owes you new wheels ... I think you have a better chance of winning the mega-millions lottery than collecting damages from the county on that basis :-)

Regards,

A. Hi, Mike. I think, but don't know, that "reverse" wheels simply means putting regular steel wheels on your car "wrong side out". The central hub area of a steel wheel has a concave dish shape; so if you reverse them, the car will have a greater tread width.

I can't speak for safety questions or insurance regulations; but ignoring those issues, it might be as easy as that, although there could be wheel well clearance issues as well; I think most reverse wheels were used on cars that were raised, which would minimize that clearance issue.

If your steel wheels will fit, or other available steel wheels will, you should be able to find a shop that can nickel-chrome plate them. But again, I'm NOT claiming it's safe -- and we live in a nanny society these days, where everyone is queasy about safety in a way that they just weren't 50 years ago. Best of luck.

Regards,

A. Javed,

Chrome wheels kept clean will last pretty long, but they are such a pain to keep clean. Even more difficult in areas with snowy winters. One would be better off changing to a set of fully painted winter wheels, or keeping the car garaged for the winter to preserve the chrome on the wheels.

Machined wheels mean the face is left with a bright machined finish and the rest of the wheels is either painted or the aluminum surface is shot blasted. The wheel goes through non-chromate conversion and then then coated with an acrylic clear coat to protect the surface.

Because the industry was required to switch from chromate to non-chromate conversion, it is a bit more likely the machined aluminum will get filiform corrosion because of the "sharp" edge left by the machining process. Acrylic powder coatings have a harder time keeping corners sealed, so a polished finish with clear coat resists corrosion better with it's rounded edges.

A. Hi, Emmy. Please see our FAQ, "Introduction to Chrome Plating" to understand what people mean by nickel plating vs. chrome plating, and what nickel-chrome means. But in short, for your purposes, they are all essentially the same thing. I think you'll find powder coating significantly less expensive. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi. Darren. Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish [on eBay or Amazon] or similar will be fine for the polishing, but you probably need some sort of power device (a power buffer or at least something like a Mothers' Powerball [on eBay or Amazon affil links] mounted in an electric drill, as just rubbing the compound on with a rag won't give you the abrasive action you'll want.

Two-component automotive clearcoat should work as a sealer. If you don't have the two-head paint spraying equipment for that, you could try the new 2 in 1 rattle cans.

but I can't personally vouch for how well they work.

Regards,

A. Hi Ron. Everything that is bright is not necessarily chrome. Chrome plating doesn't need clearcoating, and clearcoating tends to not adhere to chrome very well anyway. So, if these wheels are clearcoated, they may be polished aluminum, not chrome plated (I'm not a car or Mustang enthusiast, so I don't know). Yes, you need to remove the clear coating before polishing and, if desired, re-apply it after polishing.

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To remove the clearcoat you use Aircraft Stripper, which contains highly toxic methylene chloride. As a minimum, wear heavy duty rubber gloves [on eBay or Amazon] and wear real goggles [on eBay or Amazon], not glasses or safety glasses, and work only outside and from upwind. Here's the best youtube video I found on removing the clearcoat:

Then you need to buff the aluminum back to a good shine, after which you can either clearcoat it (slightly less shine, but less maintenance) or leave the aluminum bare (more maintenance).

Again, here's the best youtube video I found on the polishing:

Polished aluminum can be very nice looking, and many people even prefer it to chrome, but if you are looking "to make them SHINE", you probably need to get them chrome plated or replace them with chrome plated wheels. Aluminum just isn't chrome. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hello Steven,
If the wheels are "platinum clad" you would not see much corrosion at all. Platinum (the precious metal) is way too expensive to be used on wheels. Ask anyone that plates precious metals that has had to buy platinum clad anodes recently. The wheels either have a "platinum finish" which could be a powder coating, or just paint that resembles the color of platinum. You could have the wheels E-Coated which is an Electrophoretic Coating. Some local plating shops have this ability. I'm not sure clear coat on wheels would hold up that long, especially considering your locale. Another option is to search for used wheels in good condition. Hope this helps!

Hi John. If no one in the area is familiar with high quality copper-nickel-chrome plating, you probably won't be able to get it just by specifying it :-(

But that's what you are looking for. Best of luck.

Regards,