Black Or Diamond Cut Estoril Alloys, Which Would You Choose?

[SRGTD]

A lot of German on the GTI forum run the standard diamond cut 18“ on there GTI MkVII in Winter as winter set. So, as long as you keep them protected with good alloy wheels sealant product and clean them often they will be fine.

I did that with the diamond cut alloys on my mk6 GTD; they were cleaned every 7-10 days, protected with wheel sealant and wax every 3-4 months, any stone chips touched in pretty much as soon as they happened and in spite of that, two of the wheels succumbed to white worm corrosion at around the 2.5 year mark.

My advice, If you are keeping the car for long period better make sure you buy exactly what you want otherwise you will by it twice.

Good advice, but I couldn’t buy exactly what I wanted when I bought that car - I wanted a set of alloys with a painted / powder coated finished which VW didn’t offer, and diamond cut was also the only choice on the two VW’s I’ve bought since. 

So I ended up buying twice - a set of powder coated aftermarket alloys to replace the factory diamond cut alloys.

[Exonian]

I have just noticed on The VW Configurator that you can choose either Diamond Cut or Black Estoril 19" Alloys if configuring a Golf R.  With this in mind, If you were to configure a Performance Golf with Estoril alloys, which would you choose, Diamond Cut or Black Estorils?

Although I have experienced the obvious White Worm issues in the past with Diamond Cut Alloys and would prefer a painted/powder coated wheel, I am unsure if in my case a Black Estoril would go with many car paint colours, and as a result whether the Diamond Cut would suit the appearance of most Performance Golfs more? 

Neither.
I’d spec 18’s, get some 19” T-Roc R Pretorias (eBay 324258049705) with some PS4S and live happily ever after. 

Unless I was getting a Performance Pack R, in which case I think I’d stick with the diamond cut wheels.

I’ve had a few sets of black wheels and they quickly get covered in micro scratches and brake dust deposits.
But then again they’re easy to touch up when the paint gets damaged and don’t suffer the dreaded whiteworm.

The polished face Estorils have more definition and look visually bigger, but the black barrels will suffer the same fate as the all black versions and the faces will end up tarnished eventually.
They could always be fully refurbed in a mid-dark grey powder-coat after a few years though. 

[hog_hedge]

I'd go for the black.

I think the Estoril design is quite minimalist and therefore suits being black a lot more than diamond cut, I think the diamond cut Estoril looks a bit Halfords and that is strange considering diamond cut alloys usually look better than the same design in a solid colour. Add that to the fact that diamond cut alloys can be a bit of a nightmare to maintain, I think I will be getting black if I can crunch some numbers and get a Clubsport.