About 6 years ago, I swapped my wheels on my 560 SL (1988) to a refinisher supposed powder coater over in Lanham Md. As it turns out, it appears they were painted and MAYBE? they were clear coated.
At any rate, the wheels are beginning to pop off paint and bubble.
I can't come up with a solution that doesn't cost me a fortune to get these alloy wheels powder coated. No one in my area (Baltimore) seems to be able to swap wheels on a refurb or to find a way to keep me from putting my car out of commission and dong alot of tire removal and reinstallation
I can buy a set from Performance, but the freight will kill me. I thpought about buying another set of wheels used and getting them coated and then swapping the tires.
Even the used wheels are probably going to require big shipping bucks.
Maybe the best thing is to find a reasonably close powder coater, stay in a hotel for a couple days and just leave the car with them.
Any ideas from you folks would be appreciated. you guys come up with creative solutoions.

PS
HVE NO IUNTEREST IN CHROME!

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1988 560SL
Black Pearl/Palamino

What size are your wheels?

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I never go far without a little Big Star

1994 E500 199/Gray 82k
84 300D (Salty) Orient Red/Palomino 141k
88 300CE (Ersatzhammer) 904/Java 163k -- Turbo Technics twin turbo kit, AMG Gen I body kit, Sportline steering box and steering wheel, Sportline/Eibach /Bilstein Sport/500E suspension, Quaife LSD in 210 mm diff case, Silver Arrow brakes.
88 300CE Brabus 3.6 199 on Black 44k

15"

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1988 560SL
Black Pearl/Palamino

Find the same set of wheels with some kind of rubber, as a temporary solution. Mount them on the car while your original wheels go in for powder coating. Swap them back, and keep the other "newer" set and find another MB to install them into

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http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/7...144c3fc1dc.jpg

I'm guessing it is best to find someone closer to you. There are a couple of powder coaters here on the forum who migh be able to help find someone. KAdams4458 is one of them.

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

. I live in Baltimore. I have a set of 15" wheels you could borrow if you like. They are stock mb eight hole wheels and have rubber on them. The et is in the thirties, I can check this weekend if you like.

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I never go far without a little Big Star

1994 E500 199/Gray 82k
84 300D (Salty) Orient Red/Palomino 141k
88 300CE (Ersatzhammer) 904/Java 163k -- Turbo Technics twin turbo kit, AMG Gen I body kit, Sportline steering box and steering wheel, Sportline/Eibach /Bilstein Sport/500E suspension, Quaife LSD in 210 mm diff case, Silver Arrow brakes.
88 300CE Brabus 3.6 199 on Black 44k

Tom, if you want the wheel refinishing done properly plan on spending your time and effort to ensure it.
1) Rent/borrow a truck.
2) Remove all 4 wheels/tires and have a professional dismount the tires.
3) Deliver the wheels to the refinisher.
4) Pick-up the refinished wheels and take them to a local MB dealer to have the tires remounted. MB dealers use genuine MB 2-piece balance weights which minimize damage to the wheel's finish during installation/removal.
5) Remount the refinished wheels/tires.

Of course you could check into the cost of new wheels at your local MB dealer, or call around to MB dealers who sell parts at a discount. New wheels will be the proper color and have a more durable finish than most refinished wheels.

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Fred Hoelzle

Step one:
Have a look at the online shipping estimators on UPS / Fedex.

Step two:
Do you drive the car in the winter and use snow tires? Do said snow tires get swapped on the wheels every winter?

Step three:
Do you have a normal sized spare? ( Steel is OK.)

If yes to two and three, you have two choices.

If you have a spare wheel that matches what is on the car, buy one wheel. This way you can pull two from the car, put the spares on then send the others to get refinished.

With a little bit of planning,the snow tires will end up on the spare wheels making for easy winter / summer change outs. Another hint is to keep the snow in the car during the summer and a good summer in the trunk for the winter, this way you only need to store one tire at home rather than two.

Also make sure the same batch of refinished wheels end up on the same side of the car in case the color varies slightly.

The second is to send one wheel at a time, this is slower but still gets the job done.