Alloy Wheel Refurbishment

Wheels are individually inspected by hand on arrival.

Wheels undergo a special non-corrosive chemical stripping process which removes all old paint and dirt.

Wheels are blasted to remove final layers of corrosion creating a finish ready for coating.

Wheels are welded and repaired where necessary.
*An extra charge is made for welding.

Wheels are computer lathe turned, taking the material to original manufacturers specification.

Wheels go through further treatment and preparation for turning by hand.

Wheels receive a chemical pre-treatment including "de-gassing" which expels moisture, protecting the wheel.

The entire wheel is coated with powder paint and is oven baked.

The wheel is put into the wet paint shop for colour finishing.

Wheels are diamond turned where necessary to achieve a precise and polished finished.

Once diamond turned they are chemically pre-treated and de-gassed once more.

Powder or wet lacquer is added to the whole wheel and it is oven baked once again. The wheel then has to pass a final quality control and inspection.

Once approved, wheels are protectively packaged and returned to Tyre-Smart. Once returned to us, we refit and balance your tyres to your alloys and place back on your vehicle.

Spit & Polish was established in 1984, at the time wheel refurbishment was mainly achieved by hand polishing, a very messy job, and painting using traditional car paint, results were not to a professional standard and looked nothing like the original finish.

The challenge was to develop a system that looked as good as new and that could be achieved quickly (at the time only one UK alloy wheel manufacturer would refurbish wheels but often took in excess of 3 months).

What we were looking for was a way to turn around wheels the same or next day, problems were huge as we were trying to do something that had not been done before, every process needed to complete the job threw up endless problems to overcome which , slowly but surely, we did.

Within four years we were refinishing over 40,000 wheels per year, working direct with major car manufacturers as well as main dealers, Used car dealers, tyre distributors, and the general public.

The system and techniques we developed created the template that almost every refinisher in the country uses today.