“Why you should choose PVD coated chrome over traditional chrome-plated wheels”
There are more than a few reasons why PVD wheels are becoming an ever more popular option in the market. But why exactly? What makes PVD an attractive wheel finish for manufacturers and truck enthusiasts? The secret sauce is really in the PVD coating process, the coatings used, all resulting in a more easily maintained and restorable product. Especially when compared to chrome-plated wheels. Here are a few reasons we love PVD Chrome, and you will too:
Easy Maintenance: PVD wheels are significantly easier to maintain when compared to their Chromium-plated brethren. Just like all the components of your truck, the engine, paint, tires, fluids- your wheels need maintenance too. PVD wheels can be cleaned with regular car wash and water, with no special polishes or treating them any differently than the paint on your truck. As far as the maintenance is concerned a simple application of carnauba wax with every car wash, BOOM DONE. Meanwhile, chrome-plated wheels need every bit of care. Washing chrome-plated wheels is like bath night at the geriatric home. All sorts of ginger treatment, special elixirs, juice, and polishes. Even that isn’t always enough, not really. If you so much as scratch the chrome plating, it’s a death sentence. Sure, you can use some silicon and prevent corrosion, but you have a booger of goo on your sexy shiny wheel. A GOSH DARN Band-Aid on a sports illustrated model with NOBODY to photoshop it out. You get the drift, unless you enjoy high risk, meticulous care, polishing, and relative fragility there are better options out there.
Easily Repaired: You remember 3 sentences ago, when we said how one teeny scratch on a Chrome plated wheel is a near-death sentence, the bad news it still is. So you do the silicon booger and consider your options to fix it. Surprise! It’s super hard and expensive. You’ve explored re-plating it was expensive and a replacement was too, so you leave the booger on there and hope for the best, fast forward 1-2 years and now you’ve got a flakey, bubbly, peely, dingy poopy-doopy chrome-plated wheel, and you’re thinking huh, PVD wheels can be recoated or even repaired- and maybe just maybe it wouldn’t have gotten scratched in the first place. Just like that we’ve save you two years of heart ache, and a ton of polishing.
Lighter weight: When comparing chrome plated vs PVD wheels- PVD will on average weigh between 2 and 3 pounds less, meaning less rotational mass. This weight difference is due to the different processes behind those shiny finishes. Where the PVD process is more akin to powder coating, chrome plating is multi step process of adding layers of copper and nickel underneath that shiny layer of chromium. Adding complexity and weight, okay but it’s shiny right? Yeah- shiny. But you got some other shiny options. In fact, PVD Chrome and Chrome-plated wheels look practically identical.
Kryptonite Everywhere! KRYPTONITE, YEAAAHHHHHHHH If I got crazy will you still remember how sick my wheels used to be? Aged, haggard, peeling and corroded chrome wheels, what happened, how did it get this way? The answer is that basically everything on this earth is against you when it comes to keeping metal shiny stuff well… shiny. Traditional chrome wheels are crazy susceptible to moisture, stuff like Brawndo and road salts which have electrolytes in them, and friggin AIR. The worst offender most like that 3 Doors Down song’s namesake, is the brake pads and rotors. Unfortunately, unlike kryptonite hailing from a fictional and far away planet, and ONLY there, wave HI to Mr. Brake rotor, kids, he’s right effin’ there. He’s shedding all over your nice wheels and he’s made almost entirely of iron the 9th of the top 10 metals most susceptible to oxidation… Can you guess which metal came in 8th? CHROMIUM.
Thanks for reading!
