Looking for feedback on this powder coat job

I am reposting my comment from "What did you do to your 3rd gen today?" in an attempt to get more eyeballs and feedback. I am strongly considering going back and asking for a full refund on this work and would like to know if that seems justifiable based on what is shown here.

Alright guys, if you have experience with powder coat I could really use your help here. I was just able to go through all the wheels and honestly the quality seems incredibly poor. The back side of every wheel is marred like they were set on gravel, and one is even so bad the metal itself has been GOUGED.

The street-facing side of each wheel looks fine, although I'm not 100% convinced they sandblasted these because the coating seems very thick and I can easily pick out the single bronze wheel I provided from the other four gray that were provided (the color shows through a chipped area.)

Google Drive link with all images

• Bronze showing through wheel:
  • https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RAMHkNFQD8YnjLUxFA74yZW49xEJwyzz/view?usp=sharing
  • https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RW0lpZyB2jeTXYV-08sgBv4cZb4HNDMN/view?usp=sharing
    
  • Shouldn't it be bare metal and not showing the original color if it were sandblasted?

• GOUGED wheel where alloy is damaged:
  • https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S2W8kDjQrXSd6VVL5coQaDMpsXsI8D5M/view?usp=sharing

These were BRAND NEW when brought for powder coat, transported in the OEM boxes both directions, and have only been out inside my house, on carpet/cardboard to investigate.

Is this a valid complaint I've got or am I being too picky?

Want to hear from someone in the know before I go showing my ass at this shop trying to get a refund or partial refund so I can go elsewhere. But also they damaged a brand new rim --doesn't matter that it's not street facing, the thing was brand new...

 

Just my two cents - I am not a powdercoater or wheel expert by any means - If those have never been monkeyed by someone in a hurry putting tires on and off them, they look like shit.

I can't speak to the bronze not being stripped completely off (they may have just blasted off the clearcoat and prepped the surface beneath), but between the gouges and the crap coverage on the outside edges, I'd be pretty mad at paying two thousand bucks for that job assuming you aren't omitting any information.

 

What I've written is the full truth.

These were brand new; never on a car, never even had tires mounted; transported in in the factory boxes to and from the shop. What you see is each rim being removed from the box for the first time since leaving the shop, being photographed, and put right back.

 

Well, hypothetically, if those wheels came from Toyota powder coated white, and they looked like that, what would you do?

 

I'd get a refund.

Solid advice, thanks

I've never gotten pc before, so was unsure if my expectations were too high or what. Glad (sad) to learn they're not and this job is just trash.

 

The real question is; if you are unhappy with the work, then why did you take them and not say something when you came to originally pick them up?

 

I'd be mad as hell. You didn't send those up to a shop in Renton Wa did you?

 

I only looked at the street facing side of each wheel at the shop, didn't even think that the back could be such a horror show like this. Only noticed the workmanship at home while removing them to apply decals to the center caps.

 

Wheel Doctor in PDX.

 

Honestly who cares what the back side looks like. Unless it starts flaking or peeling I wouldn’t care. It’s just gonna get fucked from wheel weights and people mounting tires anyway. The face is a different story. And while it looks better than the backs there’s still spots at the edges that look up coated or thin. Probably a crappy prep job. If you wanted white wheels you really should of just bought actual wheels that came white. Anytime you paint or recoat your just asking for trouble.

 

Kinda looks like they plasti dipped it. Is the face of the wheel okay?

 

Primary concern is the chipping isn't done yet, there are bubbles that will chip further; in addition to brand new wheels coming back from powder coat gouged/marred.

This leaves bare metal exposed to the elements, which is uncool. Blemishes being limited to the back side are what motivated me to ask whether I was being picky, for sure.

The face looks fine, perfectly acceptable, that's why I took them home and didn't even think to check the back side based on that

 

PC job looks like complete trash IMO. Looks like you got taken advantage of.
Would not have left the coater with wheels that looked like that, nor paid them until they made them right. What those look like is skipped steps/cut corners. Any finish coating job quality is completely dependent on the amount of care that was taken in prep. If one of the wheels was bronze and the white flaked off, they probably didn't prep correctly, only a matter of time before more starts flaking off.

 

It sure looks like they didn’t get good cleaning before the powdercoat went on. If one side is good, they probably focused on that and gave it a quick once over on the other side.

 

The white looks really good (from the front at least)! My friend has a set of white wheels on his slammed 1995 Lexus LS400. His LS400 is like a cement gray color though

 

Agreed. Especially because that price seems insanely high to me, about double what I'd expect my local shop to charge. With rates like that I'd expect absolute perfection and even then I'd be upset about the cost and would have shopped around some more. Bummer you didn't catch this while you were there, I suspect this may be tough to get your money back. May be easier to try and have them redo it. After all, they're charging more than enough to cover their costs to do it again.

That finish almost looks like Volk bronze - ie anodized, not painted. I believe it would be much easier to coat over anodizing than it would over paint or previous powder. In fact I think you may not even need to strip annodizing and you could still have a nice finish. Paint or old powder however, should be stripped. Either way, they charged you for stripping and clearly that wasn't done.

Unfortunately finding a good PC shop can be very tough, it's taken me a while to find a good local one.

 

These are TRD Pro 17x7 wheels. I originally ordered 4x bronze and 4x gloss gunmetal, so I brought them 1x bronze and 4x gunmetal (planning to buy 2x more bronze to complete a full set of 5 in the future.)

Getting 5 wheels done due to plans to get a swingout bumper sometime soon.

Agreed on the price, but that's on me for misremembering the quote from another shop without double checking. The quality is on them, especially at these exorbitant prices, and thankfully it seems they are open to resolving the issue.

More than anything I am upset these brand new rims have been marred/gouged before ever even being mounted.

 

IMO I'd be much more pissed at the finish than those gouges as they look super minor. Definitely not anything structural or any concern other than cosmetic and just knowing that they clearly weren't that careful with them. If they were on the front I'd feel different obviously.

I looked at all the pics now.....
The areas where the finish is messed up is just unacceptable. And maybe I don't know enough about PC but the way the finish is damaged looks suspect to me, looks kinda like paint, not powder. Or even plasti-dip like someone else mentioned. Seems odd it would have kinda peeled off like that. They did a terrible job coating the interior of the wheel, backside of the spokes aren't fully covered, the masking they did looks terrible... Overall you can see there was no attention to detail here, no regard for quality or pride in workmanship.

 

$2k to paint wheels white

yikes

 

I sprayed powdercoat for about 5 years - that looks like total crap work, and they raped you on the price. You should have been OTD under $800 - stripping, spraying, and baking for 5 wheels would maybe take 3 hours if they were slow, maybe 2 lbs of powder (~$25) and 50 lbs of blast media ($15), and being generous maybe $20 for dipping in methylene chloride to strip the existing paint (which they clearly didn't do).

Your wheels look like they dropped them, did nothing to strip or prep them, sprayed them and baked them too cold or too short. They couldn't have spent more than an hour on your wheels the way they look.