C63toGT3 Guy

Getting factory powder coated wheels from a reputable manufacturer like HRE or Forgeline is fine. Having a set of wheels recoated by Bob's House-o-Powder is not. Most places that strip wheels don't know/care about using the proper grit or, worse yet, bake the old finish off. Then they might cook them at a higher temp than necessary to get the new finish smoother and have them done faster. Both of these options will basically ruin the strength of a lightweight wheel.

TL;DR - Better to have wheels that need refinishing painted.

Alan C.

There is no perfect process. Are you aware that 6160 T6 age hardens at room temperature? Better park that car in a freezer.

GregJGT3

It is not particularly the process alone that prevents the racing teams from using the powdercoat finish it is the inability to detect cracks that make it a no-no for race teams. At some point in time all wheels will fail, seeing those failures before the catastrophic break is the point.

Alan C.

I just spoke to a wheel supplier of pro teams. They do in fact use powder coated wheels. Powder coating will crack just like paint.

TCS 911

There have been some advances in metal coating that may make wheel coatings more durable and less of an issue with heat. NIC Industries (http://www.nicindustries.com/) makes oven cured and air cured ceramic coatings. The oven cured coatings can be baked at 250F for 2 hours. This coating was developed for firearms. NIC posts test results on their site for various characteristics of their coatings. They use ASTM standard testing processes. The impact and abrasion test results are interesting. The air cured coatings including clear coats can be applied over paint. These are less resistant to abrasion than the oven cured but still much better than paint. You can find applicators for these products on the NIC site.

For reference I became interested in wheel coatings about a year ago. The paint on factory supplied wheels for my 997.2 Turbo S did not hold up well to normal driving. I tried a local body shop for repainting the wheels but was unhappy with the quality and thought the cost excessive for the work done. I have had discussions with several paint suppliers about the best product to use. Most agree that a primer/color/clear coating process will work the best. This is still paint and subject to the same issues of chipping. I considered getting the wheels covered in a paint protection film (clear bra). This tuned out to be about the same price, or more, than painting the wheels and presented issues with mounting tires. I was also uncertain as to how the film would react to brake dust. I am leaning towards trying the oven baked ceramic coating due its resistance to abrasion and impact damage, and the thickness of the coating. The oven baked coating is applied at about 1 mill thick then baked. This provides a thinner coating than several layers of paint which makes the coating more flexible and should increase its resistance to cracking under loads.

A previous post talked about the difference in quality and correct process between local powder coating shops and powder coated wheels from a reputable manufacturer. I would agree with this and getting a new set of wheels that are powder coated from a known supplier should not be an issue. For me, buying this type of wheel to replace the two sets of factory wheels solely to prevent damage to the finish is too costly.

Once I have some actual results from what I use I would be happy to post them.