How do you prevent the tire shop from scratching your wheels?

Nope they're pretty much all like that from what I have seen. They have strong adhesive so they don't fall off. Except the ones they sell at Harbor Freight, those suck. Centrifugal force is pretty strong. I've never seen a tire shop actually take the time to clean all the old adhesive off. They'll try to clean as much as they can if they need to put the new weights where the old ones were mounted but other than that they won't waste their time.

I understand your concern. My last 2 sets of wheels were old school polished wheels that don't have a big open face design like with a spoke wheel. So unnoticeable for me plus I never bother to clean the inside of the wheel any so eventually the inside just gets dirty/dark.

Now when I had a Honda 20+ yrs ago in my teen days, I would take my wheels off & clean it off mys3lf cause again pretty much no tire shop is going to take the time to do so.

 

So far the manager has been cool and rectified the issues by replacing my wheels. Therefore, I haven't filed any formal complaints and I would hate to go that route but it is really annoying and a PITA to stress about it every time I get a rotation.

However, I may be looking for a new DT location.

Is that who you use?

 

I am going to start doing this... do you know of a wheel-safe cleaner that can remove the adhesive?

 

Yeah, that's who I have used for a long time.

They can do it without damaging the wheels.

Sorry for your troubles, I would go to another location and start a new relationship.

 

I would say avoid wheel cleaner. Wheel cleaner is formulated for brake dust & grime. Use something to remove adhesive yet safe that it won't damage paint. I used to just use WD40 & a plastic bottle cap, like a Gatorade cap, or some kind of plastic putty knife. WD40 doesn't work that well but it's what I have, I always have a lot of it on hand as I use it for cleaning my machines & for machining aluminum. That's pretty much all WD40 is good for.

You can also try Goof Off or Goo Gone. I haven't tried Goof Off on painted surfaces though so you might want to test on something else first if you try any of those.

Just don't use acetone. Acetone works great for removing adhesives but it will remove paint & powdercoat also.

 

Time to find another shop. Tire shops generally have a high turnover rate of wanna be techs. A shop the specializes in higher end sports cars should have a very nice tire machine and tech that knows how to use it; you just normally wouldn't think of taking it there

 

What’s sad is all they need to remove stick on wheel weights is a set of cheap plastic trim tools,

I’ve used them in the past with great success to get the weights off and clean rims I purchased used.

 

Exactly what I told them! A plastic putty knife or something similar.

 

I've never had mine scratched. But, I stay near my truck, so when they go to move it to do the work, I start taking pictures of each wheel and say "just making sure they don't get damaged".