This summer I picked up a set of RS003's for a very good price. I won't say how low, but less than the going rate for comparable RS001's. :) Here's how they looked when I got them:
They sat for a few months until I got the time to disassemble them:
Then I set about getting them refinished. I knew what I wanted them to look like before I bought them; nothing crazy, just a nice refinish with a few extra touches to make them "mine." Polished lips, half-height center caps, red logos and chromed bolts. A few months after buying mine Reznunt posted up a set for sale that looked a lot like what I wanted and that sealed the deal for me. (I'm sure he won't mind me reusing his pics. The wheels are beyond beautiful.)
The only issue was that his had huge lips that I couldn't justify replicating. Because the RS003 uses a 15" instar with 30 bolts (instead of a typical 16" RS which has a larger instar and 34 bolts) it has a very unique lip and they are consequently very expensive. Four 2" lips would have cost me over $1200 shipped from Germany. Although I would have loved running 16x8, I couldn't justify the additional expense to a set of wheels I probably won't own forever.
Once I determined the direction I wanted to go, I needed to figure out how to do it. Luckily for me, CactusJack is local to me and was a tremendous resource during the rebuild. He gave me a list of all the vendors he used, who the contact person was, everything. I was very lucky to have his help!
I got the wheels stripped, the lips polished and cleared, the barrels straightened, one minor crack repaired and the original bolts redone in chrome. I got the faces, barrels and new waffles painted in "AMG silver;" it looks nearly identical to BBS silver but has a tiny bit more flake in the paint and is a bit less "silvery." I ordered a set of genuine half-height caps from Hexagone that he hand-polished to a mirror finish.
The entire process took almost three months from when I dropped them off with the primary vendor as he sourced out a lot of the work, but the results are worth it to me and I was in no rush. The paint and polish have virtually no flaws of any type that I can find.
I mocked up one wheel with a couple of bolts just to see how they'd look. I plan on having these together in the next couple of weeks but thought I'd share the efforts so far. I have yet to pick up the red centers but www.purems.com is 10 minutes from me and has them in stock, so I'll have them this week. I have a set of Falken 912's waiting to go on these once they're done.
Thanks for looking.
Tim
They sat for a few months until I got the time to disassemble them:
Then I set about getting them refinished. I knew what I wanted them to look like before I bought them; nothing crazy, just a nice refinish with a few extra touches to make them "mine." Polished lips, half-height center caps, red logos and chromed bolts. A few months after buying mine Reznunt posted up a set for sale that looked a lot like what I wanted and that sealed the deal for me. (I'm sure he won't mind me reusing his pics. The wheels are beyond beautiful.)
The only issue was that his had huge lips that I couldn't justify replicating. Because the RS003 uses a 15" instar with 30 bolts (instead of a typical 16" RS which has a larger instar and 34 bolts) it has a very unique lip and they are consequently very expensive. Four 2" lips would have cost me over $1200 shipped from Germany. Although I would have loved running 16x8, I couldn't justify the additional expense to a set of wheels I probably won't own forever.
Once I determined the direction I wanted to go, I needed to figure out how to do it. Luckily for me, CactusJack is local to me and was a tremendous resource during the rebuild. He gave me a list of all the vendors he used, who the contact person was, everything. I was very lucky to have his help!
I got the wheels stripped, the lips polished and cleared, the barrels straightened, one minor crack repaired and the original bolts redone in chrome. I got the faces, barrels and new waffles painted in "AMG silver;" it looks nearly identical to BBS silver but has a tiny bit more flake in the paint and is a bit less "silvery." I ordered a set of genuine half-height caps from Hexagone that he hand-polished to a mirror finish.
The entire process took almost three months from when I dropped them off with the primary vendor as he sourced out a lot of the work, but the results are worth it to me and I was in no rush. The paint and polish have virtually no flaws of any type that I can find.
I mocked up one wheel with a couple of bolts just to see how they'd look. I plan on having these together in the next couple of weeks but thought I'd share the efforts so far. I have yet to pick up the red centers but www.purems.com is 10 minutes from me and has them in stock, so I'll have them this week. I have a set of Falken 912's waiting to go on these once they're done.
Thanks for looking.
Tim
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