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Rotor Hat Rehab and Anthracite Grey Powder Coated 19 OEM Wheels

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I finally picked up my 19" stock wheels from Wheel Tech in Chicago. I sent them there since all four of them had some (what I would consider) nasty curb rash. Today has a light day, so I figured it would be a good day to swap out my Rial Luganos :crying: and put the all season wheels back on.

As some of you know, the rear rotor hats seem to be prone to some unsightly rust. It can be visible close up:

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I also got the opportunity to try out my new Milwaukee Impact Wrench. This thing is a beast.


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After I loosened up the lug nuts, I used my recently purchased Powerzone 3 ton floor jack (there was some discussion about this in another thread, but any durable jack will do of course) as well as put to use for the first "real" time my Jackpoint Jackstands. Here's a few pictures of the Model S going up and on the stands (from another day).

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With the rear two wheels up on the stands, I was able to take the Rials off and get a look at the rotor hats as well as the wheel well, which was quite dirty from the winter.

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I started to work on the rust and the wheel well by spraying the well with Tuf Shine and the wheel with Iron X. You can just see the iron deposits melting away...

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I then draped off the wheel well with your standard sterile extremity drape, courtesy of my local operating room. (It had a puncture injury so it's not usable anyway.) I cleaned it with a series of APCs and degreasers before I masked off the areas that couldn't be painted.

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I took some steel wool to the area with rust again, and got most of it out. I then used VHT high heat primer and some VHT silver paint to follow. For some strange reason, I don't have any pictures of the paint after the masking tape was removed, but I do have some final pictures that showcase the change as well as the new anthracite grey powder coated 19 inch wheels:

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Picked up some lug nut caps from Tesla Highland Park (20 of them for $56 I think), and they really improved the look since my stock lug nuts were silver in color.

Anyway, it was a nice afternoon project. More work than I expected, but they turned out nicely.
 
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Nice job. This is an inexcusable amount of corrosion on a vehicle of this caliber after one or even two winter seasons. Tesla should have spec'd high-zinc-content rotors. My rotor hats look almost as bad as these do. I asked a Tesla executive about this very issue back in September 2012 and got a shrug in reply. I recently notified ownership about it, and I suggest that all owners who have rusting rotor hats do the same: [email protected]
 
One guy said when looking at the march delivery cars in Norway that the rotor hats looked better treated now. Hope so, this is not up to standard on a car like this. One advice, buy a hockey puck to use between the car and the jack :)
 
One person in the norwegian electric car forum tried this Wurth treatment. He said it did not last and a waist of money!

It's really designed for rotors to fill in the gaps and prevent squeaking. It has a temporary color change due to the deposition of aluminum particles on the rotor and rotor hat metal.

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One advice, buy a hockey puck to use between the car and the jack :)
not needed with the Jackpoint Jackstand pads. :)
 
@kevincwelch LOVE the powder coated wheels!!! If you don't mind my asking ballpark on how much it cost for that? We have the grey MS and would be interested in doing this to my wheels.

For the rotor hats if you take your car down to your SC they will do the same thing to your rotor hats for you for free. They just took my studs off my car three weeks ago and when I picked up my car my hats were all shiny and new looking. Only took about 45 minutes they said. (They had my car for the day because they swapped out tyres and did under shields)
 
@kevincwelch LOVE the powder coated wheels!!! If you don't mind my asking ballpark on how much it cost for that? We have the grey MS and would be interested in doing this to my wheels.

Thanks!! They were $150 per wheel, which included taking the tires off, repairing/powder coating, remounting the tire and balancing. I paid extra for the paint-matching of the center caps and for painting of the TPMS stems.

For the rotor hats if you take your car down to your SC they will do the same thing to your rotor hats for you for free. They just took my studs off my car three weeks ago and when I picked up my car my hats were all shiny and new looking. Only took about 45 minutes they said. (They had my car for the day because they swapped out tyres and did under shields)

Depressing. I talked to the folks at the Chicago service center about this some months ago, and they seemed bent on stating that all cars have this issue and that there wasn't anything they could do about it. I'm going to start taking my car to Villa Park or Highland Park since I've taken my car to Chicago for the same rattle 6 times and they haven't figured it out. (I have a line item as well for other things.)
 
Nice job. This is an inexcusable amount of corrosion on a vehicle of this caliber after one or even two winter seasons. Tesla should have spec'd high-zinc-content rotors. My rotor hats look almost as bad as these do. I asked a Tesla executive about this very issue back in September 2012 and got a shrug in reply. I recently notified ownership about it, and I suggest that all owners who have rusting rotor hats do the same: [email protected]

As of January there is a service center remedy for excessive rust on the rotor hats. Worked great and mine are holding up perfectly.

Tesla has also since switched to a new, slightly thicker rotor to remedy harmonic squeal when coming to a stop. I'm curious to see if those new rotors are more rust resistant.
 
As of January there is a service center remedy for excessive rust on the rotor hats. Worked great and mine are holding up perfectly.

Tesla has also since switched to a new, slightly thicker rotor to remedy harmonic squeal when coming to a stop. I'm curious to see if those new rotors are more rust resistant.

They are not more rust resistant. I have the new rotors put on 2 days ago and I just washed my car today and the rotors turned rust color immediately. I've never seen this before and have no idea why they are turning rust colored. I'm not sure if it's simply due to spraying water on it or if it's the wheel cleaner I am using.
 
They are not more rust resistant. I have the new rotors put on 2 days ago and I just washed my car today and the rotors turned rust color immediately. I've never seen this before and have no idea why they are turning rust colored. I'm not sure if it's simply due to spraying water on it or if it's the wheel cleaner I am using.

What are you using to clean your wheels?