[rick100]

Been having a hard week. Installed the coil overs , the ride was great but it was rubbing a little bit , so some fine tuning need it , feel like I can not fully enjoy the coil overs yet.

I was using a 6 inch ruler to measure the spacers I need to make it work and the stupid ruler barely touch my rim. Now there is a small scratch on it , nothing big , I though a bit of polish may fix the problem but it did not.

So now I m more piss off , and I need some recommendations on how to fix the scratch , somewhat on the cheap side. Its not deep , there are few tutorials online but there are towards bigger scratches or curb rash . I do not have any of that.

I have read somewhere sanding it down and using metal polish may work

I have the arc 8 rims so I m assuming it is safe to use metal polish on them ... Anyone knows?

[Indyeah]

I sense much googling in your future. But if you want more detailed info from the forum I recommend posting pics of the damage.

[rick100]

yea I will sorry . Yes i have google quite a bit , but everything seems to be more related to bigger scratches and curb rush. Anyways tomorrow I m getting some metal polish from work and see what happens.

[robthewrench]

Your rims are painted clear coated and are not bare metal, so please know that whether your use polishing compound, rubbing compound, or metal polish all of these are very fine sanding compounds that remove paint.

The top layer of the wheel finish is the clearcoat. Your scratch has removed some of the clearcoat. Depending on the depth of the scratch it may have removed some of the paint below the clearcoat. You need to determine if you need to only fix the clearcoat, or fix both the paint basecoat and the clearcoat.

If the scratch is very shallow, polishing it with first rubbing compound and then polishing compound will make it look better, but it will not go away. This is an easy first step, so try this anyway.

If the scratch did not damage the basecoat, you can fix just the clearcoat. Clean the surface, apply new clearcoat with a very fine tipped brush. The next step is the toughest, getting the new clearcoat to blend with the old. My most common method is first wait for the clear to dry 24 hours. Then polish it with first rubbing compound and then polishing compound.

Good luck.