My Audi A2 is over 20 years old now and I'm starting to see the tyres slowly losing pressure. It doesn't happen all the time or on the same wheel and I suspect the alloys are getting old & crusty on the beading and causing the tyres to not seal properly. Well I'm pretty certain that is what it is because you see bubbles forming if soapy water is brushed on the rim. I've taken it to a tyre place and asked them to give the beads a good wire brushing and they also use some of that sealant gunge to reseat the tyre but after a while they still start to leak. I'm loathed to buy second hand ones that may well be just as old & leaky so is there any place that cleans/cuts/machines the inside rim seals to get them back to a nice clean tight seal?
google alloy wheel refurb they need to be stripped back with acid and re powder coated, not rubbed and resprayed approx £50-90 a wheel
Lots of places do it. I use one near me in Northampton. It's £55 per wheel for sand blast and Powder coat. If the wheels need more work like straightening, welding re-cutting etc the price goes up. They are happy for me to drop the car, they do the work and 2 days larer I pick it up with shiny new looking wheels.
Almost certainly porosity, which becomes a common issue with older alloy wheels. Thorough cleaning, preparation and then re-powder coating will resolve the problem.
I've had the old boy for 20 years or so & he's now done 200k. It's a only a 1.4 diesel to which I've added a sixth gear and also had him mapped. Not a GTi by any stretch but bombs along nicely with an average 55 mpg & 60 easily in reach. Has proved to be uber reliable with only a new head gasket at 130k. I'm sortov waiting for him fall apart before getting summat different but at this rate he's gonna outlive me.
This happened to the alloys on my old Saab. They get porous, slow deflation. As others have said, getting them properly refurb/d is the solution, and not expensive.
Just picked up the car from Pro Alloys in Melksham - £260 for a set of four refurbed, which I thought reasonable, and they have come out looking great. Even when fitted with the hub caps I made a pigs ear of respraying. Evidently they were corroded to buggery on the inside.
I'm pretty sure in this instance it was the alloys cus it had steadily being getting worse and even after a tyre change.
