1 month ago
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Gutter rash can be a real pain; an honest mistake can leave your nice wheels looking haggard and rough.
There are gutter rash repair places you can take your wheel to, but perhaps you fancy doing it yourself, or just want to save the money.
Here's how you can attempt to fix it at home before you call in the professionals.
It should be noted, however, that this job is best done by someone with relevant skills and experience, and we recommend consulting with a professional before carrying out any repair work on your vehicle.
Gutter rash is generally repairable. However, in some cases, the wheel may need to be replaced or repaired further.
If you have bent the outer lip of the wheel or it has a crack in it, the wheel will need to be repaired professionally.
You must examine the wheel before making any repairs to ensure it is still straight and not cracked.
The majority of the time, it is entirely repairable with some time and effort.
How much does it cost to repair gutter rash?
If you take your wheel to a specialist, you can expect to pay between $100 for a minor repair and $500 for a major one per wheel.
These shops will often remove the wheel, remove the tyre, repair the wheel, put the tyre back on, and send you on your way.
How to repair gutter rash on a wheel
The difficulty of gutter rash repair depends heavily on the depth of the rash and the colour of your wheels.
For light gutter-rashing, you can usually get away with keeping the tyre on the wheel. You should jack the car up, remove the affected wheel, and replace it with a spare for the time being.
Start by cleaning and preparing the area with a wax and grease remover. Then purchase a sanding block and some 120-grit sandpaper.
Apply medium pressure to the area and extend out slightly further to blend in where you are sanding.
After 10 minutes or less, the wheel should be smooth to the touch, without too much visible gutter rash. Then use a wax and grease remover to clean the area again and swap out for 240-grit sandpaper. Repeat the process, and then you can step up to 400-grit.
If your wheel is painted, once it is smooth and you can’t visibly see any gutter rash, you can use wax and grease remover again, mask off the tyre and spray a high-fill primer over the top of the sanded area.
Allow that to dry, then apply a paint-matched base coat to the wheel, with one light coat followed by one of two heavier coats – ensuring to blend the paint as best you can.
After the base coat has dried, apply two coats of clear coat over the top. If you feel the new paint needs to blend in better with the existing paint, you can use a blending thinner.
If you have polished/machined wheels, then you should go from 400-grit to 800-grit, then to 1200 and then to 2000-grit sandpaper to ensure a shiny and reflective finish. You can then either clear-coat the machined part of the wheel or choose to polish it for a shiny finish.
Deeper gutter rash that cannot be sanded out requires more effort. For starters, if the rash has landed toward the edge of the tyre, you should opt to take the tyre off your wheel, and this will need to be performed by a tyre/repair shop.
You should follow the aforementioned steps of sanding down in steps. After the 220-grit, you can use a small amount of body-filler to patch the deeper gouges up.
Then sand again in steps up to 440-grit paper before covering it with high-fill primer and then painting it.
The issue with deeper rash on non-painted/machined wheels is that body filler cannot be used unless you paint the whole wheel.
For these types of wheels, you should take them to a repairer. They will likely fill the gouges with a small weld before machining the face of the wheel.
Zane Dobie comes from a background of motorcycle journalism, working for notable titles such as Australian Motorcycle News Magazine, Just Bikes and BikeReview. Despite his fresh age, Zane brings a lifetime of racing and hands-on experience. His passion now resides on four wheels as an avid car collector, restorer, drift car pilot and weekend go-kart racer.
