Have just kerbed N/S/F alloy on my beloved new car for first time. Not serious damage, but would like to keep them looking beautiful.
Is there anything I can do to hide/repair the scratches, or do I just have to accept the inevitability of this?
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If you can use a file you can usually tidy up the marks and unless they are really deep you can make them disappear.Just need patience and elbow grease.I have done this many times often on quite badly chewed wheels and no one ever spots it.Best of all it costs nothing.
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I recently asked the AA Insurance lady, by phone, if there would be any penalty if I bought a car with alloys and changed to steel. She said that there is no penalty, but there would be if it was the other way around.
Alloy wheels seem to be a costly item, they easily scuff, corrode, and fracture.
Is there any benefit to having alloys, or are they just a fashion fad ?
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You could get it refurbished for between £30 and £65 by one of the many companies specializing in such work.
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Like you, Hillman, I prefer steels. I love the look of alloys but as far as I can see, they offer no advantage over steels (other than looks) but plenty of disadvantages - desirable to thieves, easily damaged, pain to clean.
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Truth is most alloys are just eye catchers. There can be, however, advantages additional to good looks, the most important being lower weight. For example the OZ SuperLeggera is super-lite (and super good-looking, I might add :-)
Vagelis.
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Is there any benefit to having alloys, or are they just a fashion fad ?
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=11889&...f
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It might be an idea to check the wheel alignment now. Much cheaper than a new trye.
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Alloys are lighter, and more significantly have a lower moment of inertia.
If you cast your mind back to your O Level physics classes you'll remember that this means they turn around more easilly, i.e. require less external energy to keep them going and continue to turn longer once the external force is removed.
Think of a bicycle wheel, if you spin it and leave go it will keep going for ages, this is because it has very low moment of inertia. However bycicle wheels are not strong enough for your car.
So, alloys wheels take less energy to turn them, so their must be a small benefit in terms of MPG, and turn quicker with the same external force so higher MPH.
However, I'm sure the benfits are marginal and don't justify the additional cost, but they do look good too ;-)
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the light weight (and low inertia) of alloys also lowers the unsprung mass of the vehicle, benefitting handling. Although i doubt the benefit is noticable on road vehicles.
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Looks and Resale value only i reckon.
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I think you'll find most alloys fitted to production cars offer little weight advantage over steels. The alloy used is not the super light and thin magnesium as used on race cars. The alloy used is lighter per unit volume than steel but has to be much thicker to give strength as it is very brittle.
The weight saving even with the best road alloys is likely to be undone by the weight of a full tank of fuel or the weekly tesco shopping. I also doubt you'd notice any difference in normal road driving anyway.
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