Insight Wheel Refurbishment Experience.

[retepsnikrep]

In an effort to keep my two UK Insights looking their best, I have just had all 8 wheels refurbished by a firm in the UK called Pristine Alloy Wheel Refurbishers near Milton Keynes.

http://www.pristinealloywheels.co.uk/index.php

I knew they had a good reputation from posts on the Pistonheads UK Motoring Forum. I spoke with their engineer, sent a photo, and he agreed to look at them, they had not done any Insight Wheels before. No surprise really with only 270 or so in the country.

We suffer badly here in the UK with salt on the roads, and the subsequent corrosion. My wheels also had kerb damage, but were not buckled or bent.

I duly sent off the first four wheels minus tyres by courier, which Pristine arranged, they collected them from my house.

The Insight wheels are a very light aluminium alloy diamond cut design.
This means they were originally painted all over the same colour as the cut outs, then the face was machined off to leave the circular cut Aluminium finish. They were then lacquered to prevent corrosion.

They have been refurbished in exactly the same way as they were originally made, blasted, painted (very slightly darker than original, but hardly noticeable, in fact not at all if all four wheels are done.) diamond cut (removing kerb damage) and lacquered.

The result is spectacular, and gives the wheels a new lease of life. Pristine has now stored the Insight wheel profile on their computer diamond cutting system, and I did mention that they might get some more business if they did a good job. The price was excellent in my view as well.

£176 inc vat and delivery/collection for all four wheels to return like new!

New Insight wheels cost about £200 each here in the UK

Judge for yourself in the pictures below. I am well pleased.

I did buy all new centre caps for the wheels from Honda UK as they were bad as well, they cost almost as much as the wheel refurbishment

Before
(These pics were taken after they had been pressure washed, and they look awful!)

http://www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheelbefore1.jpg
http://www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheelbefore2.jpg

After

http://www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheelafter1.jpg
http://www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheelafter2.jpg
http://www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheelafter3.jpg

I am looking at the wheel centre caps with a sneaky idea to refurbish them, I'll keep you posted.

Peter

[The Citrus Smoothie]

What a great improvement!

I know Mark Elvin in the past had corroded wheels replaced under warranty, but somehow I like your refurbished wheels better.

[originalbadbob]

Peter,
They look very nice. I wonder how they would look with matching paint color of the car instead of the grey highlights.
robert

[trunkout]

flat black spray paint.

I don't like cleaning!

[Mark Elvin]

They look excellent, I'll look into getting mine done after the winter.

Does the laqure appear to be any thicker?

[retepsnikrep]

Difficult to say, possibly, still look good after 3 months. I am well pleased.

[retepsnikrep]

Just an update on this.

My wheels started looking tatty again recently (lasted about three years) so I sent four back to Pristine who sadly said they could not diamond cut them again. Partly my fault they did not last longer, with more tlc and more regular washing waxing they could last 5 years IMO without curbing.

So back to plan B. I took them to my local refurbisher Romax of Stockton. Very well known in North East of UK.

They blasted and powder coated them in a light grey. They also did the wheel centre caps after we removed the corroded thin aluminium covers. £160 for four all in. They are pretty good, not as good as the oem style I grant you, but a very acceptable alternative for nearly 10 year old alloys.

I did get some of the Honda H logos copied by my local vinyl sign place, but they can't be centered correctly at the moment due to the dimple in the centre caps so I need to revisit that design. I thought about filling the dimple with body filler and then flatting it off before getting them sprayed, then the vinyl logo would go on no problem. I'll try that for the second batch.

Anyway here are a few of HQ pics.

www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheels002.jpg

www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheels004.jpg

OEM for comparison

www.solarvan.co.uk/insight/wheels003.jpg

[Kevin Dougherty]

Looks very nice.

[02insight]

looks very clean and nice, but to me, they look sort of like plain hub caps because they dont have that shiny alloy look anymore.

Do you think adding a clear coat on them would make them look more alloyish or shiny/glossy?

have you thought about moon covers?

[JuiceMcGoose]

A little late to be saying this but lacquer has it's bad points and good points. The bad as you well know is it's not very strong. Need to keep wax on it. The good is you can go to the store and get a spray can of clear lacquer and re-paint them. No matter how old lacquer is it will dissolve when re-sprayed and as long as you get the old wax off with wax remover it will come out looking great again.