I'm one one of the few that actually likes the stock wheels with the pie plates...

I recently had them renovated and they are significantly brighter. And since the car is silver it's a very good match. (Plus spacers of course.)

Has anyone managed to remove the greyish paint from the pie plates or maybe had them chromed?

 

My car came with chrome pie plates. It had dealer installed chrome wheels. I ended up changing them to the twist style caps. It would be a lot cheaper to buy a set of chrome pie plates than getting them chromed.

 

My friend polished his Supra TT wheels himself. It's a lot of work. You may want to take them to get chromed or professionally polished.

 

Do you have before and after pictures?

 

+1...in my experience of wheel swapping it's much much cheaper to find another set of chrome pie plates.

Have you considered just doing chrome twists or chrome dinner plate center caps to add a little shine to see if you like the look first? Perhaps you will like it so much that you won't need do the entire wheel? This would be $100 or so and a great way to upgrade your look as well as see if you like the chrome look or not. The caps cover a large part of the face of the wheel, so IMO getting the caps is ALMOST as good as getting the entire wheel in chrome. Some others have done this too.

Chrome caps:

Twisties here for $120 brand new all four shipped...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4-BRA...item27bec61ff7

Chrome dinner plates:

Dinner plates/pie plates are $19.99 each for the chrome:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/LEXUS...item20b4ab2229

New chrome OEM wheels:

IMO the BEST looking OEM chrome wheels are either the g-spiders ($2k from Sewell minus our discounts) or the Tourmalines:

http://lexus.sewellparts.com/accesso...2008/2963.html

All sorts of great deals on eBay from $900-$1500 for a set of used or new:

Here is the 2006+ new 18" oem "star" type wheels in chrome for $1500...very nice:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/LEXUS...item3f0a09813d

Many others:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trkp...&_sop=16&_sc=1

 

scdroptop like his research! haha but I'm with him on those spiders... so sweet. i have the "star" chromes on my indigo ink sc and they are great rims. so shiny and always get compliments on how much better the chromes make the car look.

 

I think the original polish pie plates suites a silver SC430 nicely. It looks very contemporary and has aged very well - it has that timeless look about it.

I can't put my finger on it, but I must admit I hated the look of the SC430 in pictures and magazines but its a different matter when you look at the SC430 in the flesh.

 

I dont own a lexus, but I do have the pie plates on my car and i think they look great.

But the thing is they have lost the polished look to them now, kinda dull. I just want to refinish the center cap itself, not the whole wheel.

Knowing these are plastic, will I be able to just compound and polish them? Or is this more difficult than I thought? haha

Thanks guys

 

polishing hard will remove the top layer AND YOU WILL SEE PLASTIC

 

So whats your solution?
I mean, if its like paint, I can wet sand them, compound, polish then seal them?

 

If the pie plates are painted the color underneath them maybe different then the paint. there were many versions of pie plates made oem and aftermarket. If there painted then wet sand and repaint
them and seal them. Alot of work when you should be able to buy a new set fairly reasonable on ebay .

 

hmmm, i didnt know there were a lot of them made. I just know about the polished look and the chrome ones, haha

I DONT think they are painted, cus there are machine marks on it, kinda like lathe marks. If it was painted then it wouldnt have the shiny metal look to them right?

 

File the back of one of them in a inconspicuous place

 

ok i'll try that tonight. I wish I could take a picture to show you what type they are. Just dont wanna spend $100+ when I just put these on in march

 

Polish an area on the back also try wet sanding it and see what results you get.