Now here is the dilemma. I bought them online and was not aware that that they had a very slight gold-ish hue. The pictures in the ad did not pick it up, and even in person it is not immediately apparent. In the sunlight it looks ever-so-slightly gold.
I have considered repainting the spokes and the area around the "BBS" logo on the center cap. I would either do it in gunmetal or silver, but the slightly gold-ish hue is not what I thought it would be. I also considered a bronze color, but I am not sure how that would look with the few chrome accents on the I30. I have tires/rims on my car at this time, so I am not in a huge hurry. If I do the repaint I will do it with the aircraft stripper/basecoat/paint/clear coat method that was explained by a guy named ludacris (the max owner, not the rapper) on his CarDomain page. His rims look really good. I also have my 3rd gen spare rim on which I can practice before making a final decision.
If I paint them, I will leave the polished lip all around the rim. I have a pic of these rims painted up, but they are a slightly different design and are painted black.
As far as color, I am keeping my options open. I am by no means a Photoshop guy, so if people could visit my homepage and try to PS something on there in bronze or gunmetal, that would be cool. Or even if they could just PS the large rim pic, that would help. I could not care less if a particular color is played out, b/c I never really run into other max/i30 owners in my area. I want to have on my car what I think looks the best to me. I DO want to consider all colors before I pick one, but I will not pick one based on what people around me have. Of course, I appreciate everyone's feedback, so please keep that coming.
As far as painting the rims and it being difficult, I have painted a whole car before. I know that it is a lot different with a spray bomb versus the air gun that I used , but it is the same technique. Plus, I plan to practice on a spare rim that I have. If I am not comfortable with it, I will just leave them as-is or have them done professionally.
I was all set after seeing them in person to just put them on with the slight hue, but then I saw a set of mesh BBS knock-offs last night on a white GTI and I wa filled once again with thoughts of painting. Right after that, I saw some magazine pics of a white 240SX with bronze rims (no lip, though).
Now I am all torn. It will be a pain in the arse to repaint, but I don’t want to get tires on there and THEN decide to paint them. Also (and this is a real consideration for me), my wife looked at the rims and liked them in silver. She felt that to paint them bronze or gunmetal would be a waste of time, and that I should just mount the tires and get these on the car and be done with it.
I don’t really have a good place to do the refinishing, but I could get it done if I put a lot of effort into it. I am really torn as to whether to mount them and see how they look, or whether I should do the refinish/repaint and then be SURE that I won’t need to make changes down the road.
Any thoughts, guys? BTW, the car is white (see www for CarDomain page for more pics).What should I do with these rims?
