Alloy wheels, painted v polished

[MantaRay]

I'm looking at purchasing aftermarket alloy wheels for my everyday car, and with so many makes, styles, and finishes to choose from finding it quite a chore, albeit in a pleasant way. My question is, are polished wheels a lot more high maintenance that painted ones? What I'm getting at here is really, if one leaves polished wheels dirty do they rapidly become dull and/or pitted, or do they really need washing everyday on a regularly used car? Typically I'd expect to clean my wheels about once a week.

[KJN]

Polished or painted with a weekly maintenance will be fine, use a decent priced and named wheel cleaner, polished look better in my opinion, Lots of Wheels on the market "made in China" be careful where you purchase from, if they are a super bargain think again also don't forget to inform Insurance Company that you have upgraded if this is the case.

[TWR]

Its the dust from the Pads on the front that gets to the wheels Manta, providing you keep then thoroughly clean ( on the inside of the wheels) you will have no problem. (Valeting 30yrs part time)

[woofgang]

Be careful. I bought alloy wheels for my Jimney. They were supposed to be right for the car and not a problem but they trashed the handling.

[Toureman]

Unpainted are best, as you are buying new put a good coat of polish on then clean them with car shampoo once every 2weeks or so, never allow them to get contaminated with brake dust like most drivers are stupid enough to do !

Thay will never get dull and pitted unless you join the stupid drivers.

[Hopkirk]

I used to have some original Vauxhall alloys on a car, and they were such trouble.

Some of them constantly leaked air, despite treatments promised to seal them.

Eventually they started corroding, and looked awful.

In future I always want steel wheels with easily replaceable plastic covers.

[chas2008]

polished rims are normally laquered its when this becomes damaged the problems start.