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Leaking tire pressure

8K views 30 replies 17 participants last post by  rjgramps 
#1 ·
For those of you who have the stock chrome rims on and find yourself slowly leaking air you might want to have the tire pulled off the rim and have the rim inspected. For several weeks now, my front right tire has been ever so slowly leaking air so I finally took it in today. Nothing wrong was found with the tire or the value stem so they pulled the tire off the rim and found a lot of bubbling corrosion on the rims inside lip. I was told this is a common problem on stock aluminum wheels that have been chromed and that my other three wheels probably had the same corrosion and would probably leak. They cleaned the rim up and applied a sealer to the lip but this is only temporary fix. Needless to say I'll be replacing my wheels. With that said, what wheel looks good on a black car?.... and please don't say black.
 
#3 ·
I've had the exact problem.

For the past year, one wheel has had @ a 1.5 psi / day leak. The good folks at discount tire said that the chrome was peeling off of the inside and maybe causing the leak. (I haven't ever seen the problem area myself.)

I've finally gotten tired of refilling that tire every 3 days and am looking for a solution.

Anyone know of a good fix for the peeling chrome issue?

OR a source for reasonably priced wheels? (I have the chromed wheels and the local GM wanted $600+ to order one.)
 
#10 ·
I kind of like my chrome wheels, but if I can't fix the one, I might look into the power coating. Wonder if I could get them done in the car's Bluestone color....

After some more internet research, this seems to be a common problem for chromed wheels.

I put in a few calls to local wheel repair businesses. I'll post if I have any success!
 
#13 ·
Just to be Clear?

:skep: This issue is ONLY for chromed wheels and not an issue with the Polished Aluminum that came stock on the Kappa's? This would be option Code: QF8 when we ordered the cars. I guess going the cheaper route way back in 07 will cause less stress now, and less wear on the old wallet. :D The only issue I have is the low profile tires lose air when it gets cold and magically gain air when it gets very hot, seems like I am continually adjusting the air pressure, wearing out the plastic caps on the valve stem. Yes I only check the air pressure while it's sitting when the tires are not hot from driving. No issues on my Polished Aluminum rims so far! :cool:


TulsaSky
:jester:
 
#14 ·
Yeah, so far...

Unfortunately, over time all aluminum rims, either polished or chromed will lose air. Had lots of cars over the years that had this issue.

It's not a matter of if they will leak, it's a matter of when, unless it's a fair whether car and doesn't see the winters.
 
#15 ·
My Sky has chrome wheels and never sees snow or inclement weather, and yet the chrome is peeling on the inside lip of the rims. I have had the local tire shop refinish the inside of some of the wheels by sanding down the loose chrome and applying a sealant, and so far they are alright.

My Saab has painted aluminum wheels and it also loses a lot of air and has corrosion inside of the lip of the wheels. I did some work on them myself with a grinding wheel and didn't bother with painting or sealing them, and so far they have been alright.

As was said above, it is inevitable.
 
#16 ·
I've taken the wheel to Discount Tire several times (I've got $1,400 worth of tires from Discount on those wheels), but I've got either a busy or a bad location... they keep telling me there is no way to repair peeling chrome, and I need to buy new wheels.

I've got an appointment with a local tire repair shop for next week, they quoted $75/wheel. I'll report back.
 
#23 ·
I have had my car to 3 different tire shops to do this...it doesn't always work. I've given up on this fix and I'll just add air every 4 or so days.
 
#22 ·
Stock wheels in good condition are not particularly expensive, and finding someone to do wheel repair can be difficult.

I would pursue both options, and choose the one that suits you better.
 
#29 ·
One of my chrome wheels-tires had a slow leak for a while now. It was getting worse, becoming quite annoying so after I inspected for a puncture (it had none) I rested the tire flat on the floor and checked for rim leaks using soapy water. I had two rim leaks on the back side and one on the front side. I then had a tire shop remove the tire from the wheel and brought them home to address the problem myself.

Wow, it was a lot of work to properly address the problem. Chrome is an extremely hard metal. Even as thin as it is, it does not sand easy, nor as smooth as I had hoped for. I tried various abrasives (no stand-out winners there) and even a few whirley-gigs that I feared would damage the main wheel alloy foundation. In the end, hand-sanding won and I got the damaged chrome areas "good enough". I had the tire shop brush on bead sealer and mount the tire and it holds air. But I am not all that happy with the compromise forced upon me.

I had previously looked into getting chrome wheels refurbished. Nobody refurbishes chrome-on-alloy wheels, not re-chroming, not powder-coating, not painting. I was told that the chrome cannot be removed without destroying the alloy wheel behind it. If sandblasting, by the time the chrome is removed, there are huge valleys in the softer primary alloy material. Nobody offers a chemical stripping process that is able to remove the chrome without destroying the primary alloy wheel.

So a chromed alloy wheel is what it is and cannot be changed. If you want to powder-coat such a wheel, it must originally have a painted, polished, clear-coated, or previously powder-coated finish to start with.

As most people here know, powder-coated wheels get rim leaks just like chrome wheels do. The difference is that you can adequately clean up (restore) the sealing surfaces. A chrome rim is going to require a lot of "spot-focussed" hard labor, only to get a compromised sealing surface. I cannot imagine any tire shop doing the amount of work I did to prepare a wheel adequately.
 
#30 ·
This company Detroit Wheel and Tire will do what's called a PVD Chrome finish on them. When I was selling cars, we had customers that wanted chrome all the time. This is the next best thing. It appears to be chrome, but has like a clear coat on top of it. It's lifetime gauranteed (or at least used to be) and it's very durable. Not sure if they can re-do chrome wheels though...I can't remember. I think they can, but not certain. This was the company I was going to use to do mine when I was having issues finding wheels I liked, but it was like $250/wheel to have it done. The interesting thing I found on their page was that they say 5x112 was also a Solstice wheel....hmmmmm....
 
#31 · (Edited)
My thread just two higher #29 was addressing the right front chrome wheel/tire. Now I am dealing with the right rear loosing air.

Like last year, I park our Sky under a protective canopy for winter storage, so it sees temperature swings that can encourage rim leaks. Last week I noticed the right rear tire had gone flat so I removed the tire, filled it with air, and did my soapy water bubble-checking process. Wow, this rim leak was bubbling like crazy in one area on the back-side and also around the rubber valve stem. Being a 2007, it does not have TPS sensors, just rubber valve stems.

A tire shop dismounted the tire for me and "YIKES" my beautiful chrome wheel is so horrid inside. Upon closer inspection, there is a foreign material all over the inside of the chromed wheel that I assume is "Inflation Tire Repair" commonly referred to as Fix-A-Flat. It could be the GM-supplied or an aftermarket version. I can only assume that the tire repair material caused this dramatic deterioration.
Musical instrument Waste container Tin Automotive exterior Automotive wheel system

Automotive tire Road surface Asphalt Font Tread

Needless to say, the rubber tire had a pile of crap in it acting like balancing beads. Naturally I cleaned up the tire real good with special attention given to the sealing areas. Fortunately the tire itself does not have Fix-A-Flat anywhere on it. The original puncture must have been on a previous set of tires.
Automotive tire Tire Tread Liquid Automotive lighting

Surprising to me is how quickly I accomplished step-one of surface preparation. Unlike the previous wheel, the chrome on this one simply fell away, leaving nice raw alloy material to work with in all critical sealing areas.
Tire Wheel Automotive tire Alloy wheel Asphalt

If you look close, you can see the raised cream-colored foreign material to the right of the valve hole.
Tire Automotive tire Automotive lighting Motor vehicle Wheel

Tire Wheel Automotive tire Motor vehicle Hood

I will follow up with pictures (on this reply #31) of the cleaning of the foreign material and results after sandblasting.
 
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