Griots Garage product stained my rims - here is my attempt at a fix

**ntwillie1** · 10-02-2019, 09:12 PM

Hello everyone. I was at my local Pep Boys a few months back and saw that Griot's Garage made a tire coating in aerosol form. It peaked my interest so I went ahead and purchased it. Long story short, there was some over spray that landed on two of my rims. Unfortunately I did not see it as it was getting dark and it sat on my two rear rims for a few days/weeks as the car doesn't get used a lot. Over time, I would say a few months, it has seemed like the tire coating has eaten away at the clear coat on my wheels. All of my rims are fairly new as I probably go through 4 or 5 a year due to pot holes and such so they are very new and shouldn't look like this at all. At first I thought I could possibly clay it off but that was not successful. This past weekend I'd had enough of staring at the stains every time I walked past the car so I decided to try and polish it out. Below is my process and level of success:

*Disclaimer - I have not yet reached out to Griot's to see if they can somehow assist. At the very least I am hoping they can replace the pad's I destroyed in trying to fix this. I hear their customer service is second to none so I will reach out to them as well, I just wanted to give this a shot first.

Car - 2014 CLS 550
Wheels - 18" AMG 5 spoke aluminum wheels

Products and tools used:
Washed with Chemical Guys Citrus
Foam Cannon
Various brushes - boars hair and speed master
Mother's clay bar
Griots Garage 3" orbital
Griots Garage Correcting Cream and Fast Correcting Cream
Orange Pads, Blue Pads, Red pads
GTechniq Panel Wipe
Opti Gloss 2.0
Cobra Micro Fiber towels
McKee's Tire Coating

Pictures attached. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to embed them. Basically, I show a few pictures of my passenger side rear rim with the original damage, then a picture of progress, then a picture of the finished product, and then some photos of the products I used and the condition of my pads once I was done with just one rim. It basically ate up my 3" pad collection so i will need to order some more. I would say I invested close to 3 hours between the two wheels. Although they did not come out 100% perfect it is a vast improvement from where they were before I polished and corrected.

I chose to use Opti Gloss 2.0 because I've had a stash in my detailing locker for a few years and hadn't really used it in a while so I figured why not. I was going to put Gyeon Moh's as I have some of that stashed as well but it smells so bad I decided against it. I love Gyeon in terms of looks and longevity but smell wise it's not so pleasant. I used G Teqhniq Panel Wipe because it works well and again, I had a stash that I want to get through. In the pictures seen here I have not yet applied the McKees Tire coating but I did do that just a few hours ago. Thanks for reading.

**SWETM** · 10-02-2019, 10:38 PM

From the looks of the pads it seems that you don't have a clearcoat on the rims but it's bare aluminum. And that would make more sense why the GG Tire Coating stained them. As aluminum is very porous and thinner products will get deep down in the it. The black residue on the pads is the oxidized aluminum that you often in almost every time you get on them in a black residue. Or was it that much of the tire coating and was it a black dye in it? Also where the pads getting this black residue on them right away or did it take a lot of polishing until they started to get black? If the later you did go through the clearcoat on the rims. The polished lip and edge is not so unusual to be bare aluminum. But it's not very common these days that they are. I would reach out to MB and check with them if your rims have any bare aluminum on them. Then you have to look up if your wheel cleaner and tire cleaner is safe to use on the bare aluminum as well. As there are a lot of them that can be damage the finish of the bare aluminum.

Think they looks really good after your hard work of polishing them up. In no way trying to be unfriendly just my observations on the black residue on the pads and what that useally tells.

/ Tony

**rlmccarty2000** · 10-02-2019, 11:52 PM

What was the name of the OTC GG product that you think ate into the rim surface? Strange that a tire coating product would etch into metal. I’ve never heard of that happening.

**ntwillie1** · 10-03-2019, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by SWETM

From the looks of the pads it seems that you don't have a clearcoat on the rims but it's bare aluminum. And that would make more sense why the GG Tire Coating stained them. As aluminum is very porous and thinner products will get deep down in the it. The black residue on the pads is the oxidized aluminum that you often in almost every time you get on them in a black residue. Or was it that much of the tire coating and was it a black dye in it? Also where the pads getting this black residue on them right away or did it take a lot of polishing until they started to get black? If the later you did go through the clearcoat on the rims. The polished lip and edge is not so unusual to be bare aluminum. But it's not very common these days that they are. I would reach out to MB and check with them if your rims have any bare aluminum on them. Then you have to look up if your wheel cleaner and tire cleaner is safe to use on the bare aluminum as well. As there are a lot of them that can be damage the finish of the bare aluminum.

Think they looks really good after your hard work of polishing them up. In no way trying to be unfriendly just my observations on the black residue on the pads and what that useally tells.

/ Tony

Hi Tony. I believe the black is from the tire itself as the pad would touch the edge of the tire since the area to work in is so small. That is the reason why only the edge of the pads are black and not the center portions.

**ntwillie1** · 10-03-2019, 09:42 AM

Originally Posted by rlmccarty2000

What was the name of the OTC GG product that you think ate into the rim surface? Strange that a tire coating product would etch into metal. I’ve never heard of that happening.

Griots Garage Black Satin Tire Coating.

**Mike lambert** · 10-03-2019, 04:59 PM

I’ll be honest, those rims look like they were refinished before and the paint came off. The Griot’s product will not do that.

**ntwillie1** · 10-03-2019, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by Mike lambert

I’ll be honest, those rims look like they were refinished before and the paint came off. The Griot’s product will not do that.

Not sure I’m following you here. Are you suggesting that they were previously repaired/repainted and that the damage that appears is from that and not the Griots?

If so, I guarantee you that is not the case. W all the pot holes in the winter up here in the north I am always cracking or bending and replacing rims. I have a wheel and tire protection plan for both my Benz’ because when you have cars w low profile tires you get used to having to replace them all the time. In the past year all of my rims have been replaced at least once. This is definitely a result of the tire coating not getting along w the material the wheel is made out of.

Also, if it were true that paint was coming off I wouldn’t be able to achieve the result of getting it to look back to factory spec. More paint would have just come off. At least that’s what I would think would happen.

**Dr Oldz** · 10-03-2019, 06:59 PM

I honestly doubt that the Griots product ruined the rims but perhaps reach out to them for assistance!

Secondly if you changing rims (4-5 a year) like people change socks, I wouldn’t worry about it as you will soon rotate thru the rims and replace them.

I would suggest next time masking and protecting the rims if you are doing a coating in spray form again.

Also may I suggest a vehicle that can handle some tougher terrain... must suck having to get a new rim every week or so. I assume your warranty will get fed up at one point and cut you off.

**Rrthomas78** · 10-03-2019, 07:21 PM

I use that product all the time as well as blackshine and never have had an issue. I just went out to garage and read the can there's not even a mention of wiping off overspray on your rim so they must not think it could do any damage either. Also the word coating should be used loosely with these 2 sprays it's gone in a week or two

Sent from my SM-A205U using Autogeekonline mobile app

**ntwillie1** · 10-04-2019, 12:10 AM

RRThomas, I agree on the coating not lasting long. I honestly wouldn't have expected it to cause any damage.

Dr. Oldz, I agree that I do go through rims quite often but that usually happens more frequently in the winter when it gets dark earlier and I hit pot holes I can't see due to damaged roads from road salt, plows, and the like. I agree on masking the tires off and lesson has been learned so I will keep aerosol products away from my wheels and if I do use them I will immediately check for overspray and remove if any. LoL on the new vehicle suggestion.

Going forward I'm applying any tire dressing/coating with an applicator, I think i'm done w aerosols.

The reason I posted this thread was just to make people aware of my experience w overspray on aluminum wheels and how I attempted to fix it. I'm not wragging on Griot's Garage or anything, I still like them and will continue to use "some" of their products, just not the tire coating. And i will reach out to them just to discuss the matter.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and comments.