Chrome ridlers,. not a good idea.

Last year early July, i bought the Ridlers for the orange car. They were shipped to Jarrods and installed.
I drove the car to charlotte to the nationals,.it was driven around locally a few times,. less than 3000 miles on the wheels.
The wheels are deteriorating so quickly,.they are flaking and pitting from the inside out.
The car sat on gravel till winter then was moved next to the shed and as you've seen by the pics the car was encapsulated in snow and ice.
They sat outside on the car all winter but were never exposed to any sort of winter driving,.

I contacted the company i bought the wheels from, SD wheel corp(steves discount wheel) and got the run around saying it was a problem between me and TWG (the wheel group)
A quick phone call to TWG customer service and was told i had to go thru my retailer,.(hmmm)
so after some prodding,.(pictures were sent already of course) they have agreed to let ME pay for the freight both ways for some exchange wheels,.  

I am thinking i will get a different wheel,.or get the same style wheel with the polished lip and the black (or orange) spokes.

I am very downhearted by this experience,..These wheels look SO good on the wagon,.

compounding the issue is the fact i live in canada but picked the car and wheels up in NY,.so i have to freight them from the USA , then deal with getting them back to canada,. which of course will cost more money,.
This all really sucks,..

I'll post up pics later.

After hearing your first comments about this I gave my own rims a good look over. I have the painted argent colored and some black ones. Only issue I have is with the chrome dust caps...pitted beyond saving.  Im glad they worked with you.

You can't leave chrome wheels outside in the winter, even if they are not driven on salted roads. I learned this the hard way.

Yea, doesn't matter if you don't drive it on the salty roads, the moisture is going to wreck them. Should have coated them with Fluid Film to keep the moisture off them.

Really sorry to hear this Nick,Ive been looking at the chrome ridlers on ebay but will now reconsider.The chrome on my german made BBS wheels are coming off too but those are 25 year old wheels.Nobody here in Va wants to rechrome anymore.

That's a shame. I am always afraid of inexpensive chrome wheels. even the best quality chrome can have issues.

Nick

There are quite a few guys here, in the US, that you could ship to, if that helps. I'm one of them, but there are probably other guys closer.

Tom

I would suspect it's just than just moisture. More like surface material preparation, and bad adherence of the plating. But I suspect it can partially be attributed sooner or later to the rate of expansion of different materials. It tends to separate substrate surfaces from each other. Then the moisture can get in. With freeze/thaw conditions to split them further, it's a mini version of our beloved potholes.

Most importantly, it hopefully gets resolved in a positive manner for Nick.

jayoldschool wrote:

You can't leave chrome wheels outside in the winter, even if they are not driven on salted roads.  I learned this the hard way.  

I,ve owned a few set of chrome wheels over the years,..never had winter problems,. in fact i used a set of crome reverse rims for winter years ago,.a quick polish and they looked good again,.

dianes fancy ford has chrome rims,. yes they are peeling on the inside,. but the car is a 99 and has 160000 miles on it,.they've done well,.

These ridler aluminum rims have not had a copper/nickel coat before the chrome and thats why they are separating,.

pretty piss poor if a wheel can't get wet,. and get ice on it,, with out it separating,.

as was mentioned chrome wheels 5 -20 yrs old,. fair enough,. but 8 months??

these wheels were $850, including wheel nuts and shipping,.

is that a cheap wheel?

I've never liked the idea of chrome on aluminum wheels.

So to conclude the chrome rim saga,.
tires were dismounted, wheels boxed up and shipped,. wife had to drive to our drop off spot in lewiston NY,.(4.5 hr round trip)
Freight was $116+ for round trip,. and in their infinite wisdom,. the canadian persecutors decided i had to pay taxes on the shipping?? AAARGH!! another $42,.now i have to pay for remount and balance,.GRRRrrrrr

I tried to get a set of painted centres with polished lip,. but no go, even tho they are a cheaper wheel and i was willing to swap straight across,.

as soon as the cold weather comes,. i'll put some crappy tires and rims on and put the ridlers in the warm basement in one of the spare bedrooms,.

car just doesn't have the appeal with stock rims,..

that s*cks....

Man that stinks! Those wheels do look fantastic on your car...hate that they didn't hold up.

I've had factory chrome wheels on both my '02 Firebird Convertible and Misty's '01 Grand Prix, and the chrome was fine after years and years of use....but both were Texas cars from new, so possibly sitting with water on snow left on them would have a different result....or maybe factory wheels are just better quality?

You do have me thinking, because I've always wanted to try chrome Impala SS wheels on the Roadmaster. May reconsider that idea and just keep polishing the bare metal....

Hope it all works out Nick!

-Mike

wheels back on ,. car looks waay better,..



now swap interiors and fix the a/c

still love it

Orange you glad theyre back? Sorry...somebody had to say it.

Love those wheels! Hope they hold up this time!!

The wheels have been on less than 60 days and they are starting to pit again,.

So whats the excuse this time? weather too hot,.
too dry?


AAAArgh,. i am sick of these rims,.

What a shame. Sorry you are going through this Nick. Maybe you should have Jethot coat them.... Ok to soon!!