I know, me too. I think your idea for gunmetal would look good on your white car. But I want something with a little more contrast to the gray of my car, and the red. So I'd probably go with gloss black.

It would be cheap, just pay for supplies and a full day of work. I would use those "rim stripes" for the red lip. That would make the whole process easier, painting the wheel only one color. Plus you could take them off, or change them if you wanted to.

ive done this 2 my 6 also i just sanded them with a scotchbrite and wiped them down with paint thinner and used vht black caliper paint. they look good as far as im concerned. i on the otherhand would not use the duplicolor wheel paint it does look good but they chip after a while. i had a 04 silver saturn ion redline and i painted them black in the spring and by winter they looked like shit. but its all up to you i recomend the vht caliper paint.

before you guys all start painting your rims, here are a few things I gained from when I did it myself:

1) The finished product takes A LOT of work.

2) painting with masking your tires is only going to get the face of the rim and chances of exposing some "old paint" is pretty high.

3) the rim must be baked for the paint to have any kind of stability. AKA if a stone hits the wheel it will chip the paint in a heartbeat.

4) The center caps are made of plastic, and over time the materials in plastic vs metal(the wheel) will have a color gap

5) the paint can fade quite easily

6) when you take your car to the tire shop, the careless auto shop workers will just throw the lugs in the holes and if they hit your rim(likely) it will scratch the paint. Any tire shop place with an alignment machine clamping onto your rim will leave abrasion because of the weak paint.

All of the above factors affect the look of the rim greatly, and the primary reason many people paint the rim is for looks anyway. Those reasons above are why I think its worth it to spend on aftermarket wheels.

Save your money!!

How many of you think those "red" calipers look cool and look like those porsche calipers? 3 months later they become a faint orange and they look like garbage. Tellin ya, its worth it not to do it.

My stock rims on the 3 have been painted for almost a year now. No problems whatsoever, but we've been looking at changing it up a little bit. Might have to try something like this

had to pull out some pictures from the summer since i have the winter wheels on now.
but here is it

steel grey with the graphite color (or do they call it gunmetal?) from duplicolor. I didnt want to paint the center cap so they stand out a little bit.




sorry i dont have a closer shot but they are in winter storage...

And.............duplicolor........... How long have you had them painted? How many Coats?
They look good from a far.

i have had them painted since probably late april. 3 coats of the duplicolor wheel paint on each, 2 clear.

Can you take a close up pic?

I was going to do that but I decided to go black since it would stand out more. My stock rims with brake dust already look gunmetal-ish already.

Wish I saw this like 2 months ago before I put my stocks back on for winter lol. I definetly would have done the same... maybe w/o the red stripe but something similar.

Are the wheels clean in that picture? it looks really dull, like there covered in brake dust... did you use clear coat?

Well guys I finished my wheels! I spent 6 or so hours with 350 grit sandpaper hitting every edge front and back. I was going to go with Duplicolor HWP102 Graphite. But after doing the center caps with it I decided that I liked the flat black of the primer better. So I just applied three coats of HWP103 Clear. I then had to patiently waited out the 7 day for the paint to cure before putting the new tires on. The 225/45/18 Contiextremecontacts went on with out any chips to the new paint (thank god).

Tell me what you think. The light is bad in the pics. It is rainy and over cast her today.




Now I just need to roll the fenders. I rubbed a couple of times on a trip north this weekend.

I've seen a Civic Si do pretty much the exact same thing where I live. It looks pretty good. I'd rather use a more matte black than the glossy one that guy did.

nice work but the black rims with red lip is getting overplayed like spinners...