Wheel Safety & Maintenance

How to Not Damage Your Wheels
Wheel finishes can be quite fragile and vulnerable to all sorts of hazards. How to keep your nicely finished rims looking that nice.

Wheel Finishes: Paint
Most original equipment wheels are painted. Learn how to (and how not to) care for your painted wheels and what it takes to refinish them if they get damaged.

Wheel Finishes: Hypersilver
Hypersilver is a very complex paint process that uses a translucent metallic outer paint laid over a colored undercoat to give the wheels a deep inner glow.

Wheel Finishes: Polished
A primer on the various types of polished finishes out there; how they are created, how to care for them and how they can be repaired.

Wheel Finishes: Chrome
Chrome is a supermodel. All beauty on the surface, but a nasty personality underneath.

How to Not Damage Your Wheels Part 2: Structural Damage
How to avoid bending or cracking your expensive alloy wheels.

Diagnosing Wheel Vibration
Does your car shake at speed? How to tell if your car's vibration is coming from bent wheels or tires.

Wheel Straightening
An overview of technologies that allow bent aluminum alloy wheels to be straightened out.

Wheel Alignment Explained: What is Caster, Camber, Toe-in and Toe-out?
All of the elements that make your car go straight are called "alignment." Some shops try to make it seem like rocket science, but wheel alignment is a fairly straightforward affair.