Scratched the side of the wheel.
 

The title says it all, after picking up my g/f at her job (bank) I tried to leave by driving though the most outside drive through which also happens to be the narrowest of them, well I scraped the very outside edge of my wheel against the passenger side curb. I'm going to call Mazda in the morning to see what they would need to do and how much it would cost to fix it. Can anybody tell me what this would involve (would it be a diy kind of job or should I leave it to the dealer) and how much I'm probably looking at spending to fix it at the dealer. Please respond I'm worried to death about my baby and not being able to afford to fix her being a college student and all, not too mention this being my first new car I want to keep it in top shape. Thanks.

I've heard people just painting them. Do a search on here, but I think the Sunlight silver touch up paint does a pretty good job matching the wheel's colour.
I scratched mine too, but I think you pretty much need to get a new wheel cause I don't think you can weld or do anything to a cast aluminum wheel....
On the bright side, now you have yourself an excuse to get the mazdaspeed or other aftermarket wheels =)

Do a google search for "Wheels America" Not sure about cast aluminum, but the've fixed some wheels for my family before. They have lots of locations around the USA. IIRC, my Husband had a Nissan Wheel with a big chunk out of the lip, and it came back good as new for about 125.

Thanks, I actually found someone in the phonebook today who specializes in rim repair so I'm gonna give him a shot. Hopefully that should fix the problem and I can get back to admiring the beauty of the 8. And hopefully it won't hurt my wallet too bad....

Its really easy. Get some medium grit sand paper or a dremel tool and grind it down, then go over it with fine steel wool. then paint it. done.

Re: Scratched the side of the wheel.
 

I scraped mine too, drivers side back. Tell me what you find out, OK?

Re: Re: Scratched the side of the wheel.
 

I found a place that does repairs so I'm not going to talk to Mazda most likely. Look in your yellow pages under wheels, I found a couple of them in my phone book, Hopefully you have some nearby as well.

hey guys, i have a scraped wheel too. i hope one of u post an update once u've gotten it fixed. thanks & good luck!

ps nope, my husband isnt allowed to drive my baby anymore since he gave her a bo bo!

Irock59040,

Cool, another Richmond 8!

If you have a small scratch, ther are guys that do sand/filler/paint for about $50. However the more damage, the less likely the repair will last.

I scraped my right rear wheel back in August. It was a long scrape (about 1/2 the circumference). I asked around and found Wheel Wizard on Midlothian Turnpike. I went by there to check them out and they do a really professional job. They strip the wheel, grind the damage smooth and then re-finish to match the other wheels, all for about $150. Unfortunately it is a two day process. Since I have no spare that means I would have had two days of car rental cost on top of the $150.

So, I ended deciding to buy a new wheel from mazdastuff.com. Wheel, shipping, mount and balance came to about $250. A little more expensive but a cleaner solution.

Hopefully you have minor damage that the fixit guys can take care of.

If there is 4 people needing single spare rims/tires, I might consider selling my set seperately.

Hmm, I have Rimdoctor coming to look at mine on Friday, they're a mobile service. It makes me wonder how good of a job it is, since it's a mobile service it must be done over a few hours tops. Wonder if I would be better going to wheel wizard. Any thoughts on this?

i also got a couple chips on one of my wheels and curbed lip of the other i figure might as well just powdercoat all 4 of them a different color.

Several people, including the Wheel Wizard guys, referenced people who do low cost cosmetic repairs . That is the tire stays on the rim and the guy sands down or puttys/sands-down the scrape and then applies a matching finish over the area. My sense is that this usually runs about $50 and is frequently used by dealers for minor blemishes.

I am not an expert but I would think if it is a small area (less than 1.5" or 2"), that the spot repair would be a fine solution, depending on how deep the scrape was and how good the guy is at matching/blending the finish. I have not seen this repair first hand. You can check out http://www.gtasentra.net/howto/wheelscrape.html and judge for yourself about the process. Unfortunately my scrape was so long that a spot repair was not an option.

If you have substantial damage or want a totally undetectable repair (factory new) then you need to go to Wheel Wizard and get the $100-$150 repair. I saw some samples of their work, they are amazing. They routinely restore high-dollar rims for Mercedes and BMW dealers. Unfortunately, the stock RX-8 rim is not high dollar (unless you buy one from a local dealer), so the repair dollars might not make sense.

Good luck, and let me know how things turn out.

I got mine scratched, I think I'm just going to leave it as is and when I get it powdercoated it won't be noticeable.

do you plan on re-coating the same stock color?

No, I'm planning on black. The scratch isn't that bad...I probably could get a dremmel and sand it down and touch it up myself, but I'm not that confident in my abilities and I'm lazy. :)