the factory alloy wheels on all my various european cars over the years never had any leakage problems, and the finishes were/are very durable. they are silver painted (with Wirth wheel paint) and clear coated (again, Wirth clearcoat) at the factory. These cars have run the gamut of a 1984 VW convertible to various volvos (a 1987 240 had about 500K miles when it went to the wrecker, its wheels still looked good), and a few Mercedes, including a 1994 Mercedes E320 wagon (which we still have, with 280,000 miles now).
Now, true, they don't salt the roads around here, in fact we have pretty mild weather, but we've driven these cars all over the place, including up to the snow country in the winter.
ALL these european cars seemed to suffer from heavy black brake dust, and i've always been pretty lackadaisical about cleaning them, but when I use a wheel brush and hose, they come out looking good again.
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