Hi all hope you are all well, have a look at these and tell me what you think.

My 2010 MK7 Fiesta Titanium was collected by ford for its second service on Thursday 31st Jan and one of the wheels came back looking like this.

It appears the wheel has been kerbed slightly, and I am assuming a good blasting from the jet wash they use to clean the vehicles after service has stripped the paint off.

What concerns me is that these are supposed to be Alloy Wheels, but if you look where the paint has peeled off it appears to be a white shiny plastic/resin coated in a paint to make it look like a solid alloy wheel.

Now firstly I understand what an alloy wheel is, and it is cast using various alloys, and is solid alloy throughout, and by default they are grey in colour and usually lacquer coated to make them shiny.

If they get kerbed they would generally gouge the alloy metal and maybe the lacquer coating would flake after time and that would be it and not have paint coming off

Secondly I was sold this car I was led to believe it had alloy wheels, and by the look of them I assumed it had.

Has anybody had similar problems happen to them, and is it the case that these are not true alloy wheels but painted plastic.

I welcome your thoughts and comments and any correction to my thoughts above before I go back to ford threatening them with trading standards.

Cheers

They look like they were White and some one has sprayed them , i would say you will need to get them refurbed , have you spoken tot he garage about the damage they have done?

Hi thanks for your reply.

No I haven't contacted the garage yet but will be doing so in the morning.

This car was a Ford Motor Company owned car, I bought it when it was six months old through a Ford Motor Company owned dealership, not a franchise, and it is the same dealership which services it.

So if they have painted them I want to know why, and I bought this in good faith as being a straight car owned by ford. I agree it will need a refurb but I want them to pay or replace.

Would i be correct in thinking a titanium spec fiesta came with titanium spec alloys as standard,

They should look like this:

Would i be correct in thinking a titanium spec fiesta came with titanium spec alloys as standard,

They should look like this:

Correct, lan01's car has the optional extra ones.

Cheers Nathan, you are spot on. My titanium at the time was highly specced by ford, it had these wheels as an optional extra, so was the leather upholstery, lowered springs, Sony head unit, front and rear parking sensors etc all on an automatic.

Just to update.

Contacted the dealership today and sent the photos above. I was informed that the wheel are made of alloy, but they do paint them. The white you can see is the undercoat.

They are saying that there is a slight scuff to the wheel itself, and this has allowed all manner of things to get under the paint and the jet washing probably caused it to part company with the wheel. But I also pointed out that the paint was lifting from undamaged areas of the wheel of which they agreed.

They are meeting with there wheel refurb guy tomorrow and will show him the photographs, and if it can be refurbed they will collect the car and get it done, if not they will come to a compromise.

All in all a very civilised conversation and the dealership were not negating all responsibility.

Will let you know the outcome.

Sounds good , keep us updated on how you get on

How much did it cost you to refurbish them?

The dealership is having the car in to refurb the wheel free of charge.