Cheap wheel refurb ideas

As the title please!! My p-slots are pretty ropey to be honest and i can't afford to spend a lot (read VERY LITTLE!!) to tart them up. The plan will be to get them done properly eventually, but we use the car as a daily and it'd be nice to have them looking a bit neater.

Is there an easy way of painting the slots black too?

 :dontknow:  :dontknow:

What about sanding and then buffing? Even if you haven't the bits, as long as you have an electric drill, it won't cost much. Just a fair amount of effort (more effort, better finish). Polished P slots look pretty smart but don't seem to be that common. Think it would look better than painting them black anyway.

Cheers mate, something to think about definately.

What tools would you need for that?

Wet & dry to sand any imperfections out. Then get a couple of polishing compounds and mops for a drill. You can pick those bits up cheaply off eBay. There's a bit on my blog about polishing, see link in my sig.

Depending on the state of your wheels you may not be able to make them perfect but should still look pretty good.

Thanks again mate!  

Here's some inspiration for you

Don't know about polishing the P's personally.

If the car's a daily, it'll be a part time job just keeping them from corroding (I know, I'm running polished ATS rims on mine at the moment!)

It's a lot of work to do in the first place too, never mind the maintainance.

As for spraying P's black, it took me about a fortnight of evenings and weekends just to mask the P's off to spray them black!

If you've got a bucket load of patience and don't mind spending Sunday afternoons with some polishing compound, go for it…  They'll look amazing!  Just giving you a down to earth reality of living with polished rims though.

Don't lacquer over polished ally either, that'll just crack, go milky/yellow, or fall off anyway.

Elbow grease!  (or mops and power tools? Take your pick)

I've bought some stuff called Protect-a-clear made by Everbrite that you can use on polished metal, apparently won't crack or yellow and as the name implies is crystal clear. They say it should last 5 years or so. I'm planning on using it on the mirror polished bits in the engine bay too.

I checked out what people thought of it and only found positive reviews.

They do another version but Protect-a-clear has additional UV protection. You'd only need their smallest size, the sampler should be plenty.

Poor boys wheel sealant is good

Poor Boys is good but it's temporary, the Protect-a-clear will last years, at least that's what they claim and people say. A sampler probably costs about the same too.