Wheel Colour Change - Help Required!

[mikegti77]

Hi,

I am refurbishing my standard GTI austin alloys on Thursday. My car is Carbon Grey and I am basically stuck on the wheel colour. 

I am thinking either tungsten (light grey) or anthracite (very dark grey).

Has anyone got any pictures please of either their Carbon grey golf with grey / dark coloured alloys on?

Cheers   

[Watts]

I'd keep them standard, they're not a bad looking wheel but likely ruined being all one dark colour.



Not my cup of tea at all.

[king monkey]

Not for me either. They look odd like that.

[barrym381]

Dark wheels always make them look smaller go for silver or shadow chrome

[mikegti77]

Some good points, I agree too dark would hide the design and maybe make look smaller.

Thing is, I like the standard diamond cut finish look, but after 5 years and lots of white worm they look really quite bad. if I go diamond cut again they will within a 18 months - 2 years start to suffer white worm again, its just the nature of diamond cut wheels.

Maybe a lighter colour would be best, the tungsten colour is like a mid grey, half way between silver and the anthracite

Looks like I have some thinking to do!

keep the guidance coming please!

[mikegti77]

Dark wheels always make them look smaller go for silver or shadow chrome

shadow chrome maybe a good call

[Guzzle]

Dark grey wheels against dark grey bodywork isn't a great look. I'd go for something lighter.

[wantmygti]

Why not use two colours so as not to lose the design? A tungsten spoke on a black wheel?

The CS wheels feature silver spokes on a black dish.

[SRGTD]

Why not use two colours so as not to lose the design? A tungsten spoke on a black wheel?

The CS wheels feature silver spokes on a black dish.

The two colour look is almost always achieved with a diamond cut finish - the Clubsport’s Belvedere alloys are diamond cut.

For a wheel refurb company to achieve a two colour painted / powder coated look rather than using the diamond cutting process would probably be expensive. Once the wheel has been painted/ powder coated in the first colour, it would be necessary to very carefully mask off those areas that are to remain the first colour before applying the second colour to get a diamond cut look. The masking up of the wheel would need to be very accurate to get a good end result, so would probably be quite time consuming - and time costs money.

IMO, wheels with wide spokes like Austins fitted to the mk7 GTI don’t tend to look good in a single dark colour. An option the OP could consider is to get their wheels refurbished in a dark colour and then get the face of the spokes vinyl wrapped in a chrome or silver coloured vinyl. That way, it would be possible to achieve the two tone look similar to the original OEM diamond cut finish without the issue of white worm corrosion.

[barrym381]

Why not use two colours so as not to lose the design? A tungsten spoke on a black wheel?

The CS wheels feature silver spokes on a black dish.

The two colour look is almost always achieved with a diamond cut finish - the Clubsport’s Belvedere alloys are diamond cut.

For a wheel refurb company to achieve a two colour painted / powder coated look rather than using the diamond cutting process would probably be expensive. Once the wheel has been painted/ powder coated in the first colour, it would be necessary to very carefully mask off those areas that are to remain the first colour before applying the second colour to get a diamond cut look. The masking up of the wheel would need to be very accurate to get a good end result, so would probably be quite time consuming - and time costs money.

IMO, wheels with wide spokes like Austins fitted to the mk7 GTI don’t tend to look good in a single dark colour. An option the OP could consider is to get their wheels refurbished in a dark colour and then get the face of the spokes vinyl wrapped in a chrome or silver coloured vinyl. That way, it would be possible to achieve the two tone look similar to the original OEM diamond cut finish without the issue of white worm corrosion.

I can't see vinyl wrapping working very well on wheels on a daily driver