factory wheels are painted, not powdercoated.

 

Use a high quality paint and clearcoat and you should be ok.

 

I was going to do this sequence of steps: 1) Sand, 2) Primer, 3) Lightly sand again, 4) Paint....Should I definitely use a clear coat? Or should I just see how the wheels look first?

 

TBH, I don't see how powder coating would hurt the wheels, even sand blasting if the person doing the job knows what they're doing to pick a medium for just scratching the surface for coating and not using anything heavier.

 

clear coat

 

That's exactly how you should do it. I personally think painting is better, because if for whatever reason, if they get scratched. you can easily touch them up with some extra paint.

and on your paint step, i would do 5-6 super light coats. i think that generally turns out better. and i would also let them dry and put them on the car and see how they look without a clear coat. if you like them as is, leave em.

 

That's a rip off.

 

Mine broke too. I just picked it up at the dealer this morning. Cost me $238 for a piece of holy plastic. Thanks Mazda. I told the dealer it looks like Mazda did a cost savings here and went all plastic. To try and make me feel better he said they replaced one visior on a Nissan last week and it cost $465. My extended warranty is not in their computer database so that is really helpful. So now I will not use a window shade and the windows will be lowered down some. They were when the visor failed too. Mine is an 04 with 22,000 on it. Nice thanks Mazda.

 

^ Huh?

 

LOL I posted the remark for the sun visor thread and it posted to here!! Never had that happen before. Must be the nut behind the wheel. Got to be it