Wheel Types

A quick guide to the different types of wheels that we commonly encounter can be found in this section of the website. If you have a wheel which does not seem to fit any of the descriptions below then please give us a call and we will establish if we can refurbish it – we normally can.

Standard Alloy Wheels

Most wheels which are painted all over would usually be described as standard alloy wheels. A couple of examples are shown below.

The key thing to remember is that it is not the paint finish which determines the type of wheel, but how it was originally constructed and/or processed during refurbishment.

Diamond Cut (or Polished) Wheels

Where wheels have a very shiny silver metal looking or polished appearance then this would normally be the result of having a diamond cut finish. The same wheel can have both a diamond cut and a painted finish on different parts of the wheel.

A diamond cut finish is achieved by machining the face of the wheel on a lathe, so is a specialised process. Lepsons can produce a diamond cut finish on wheels up to 24″ in size.

This is a fairly typical finish that people enjoy having and some examples are shown below:

Split Rim Wheels

Split rim wheels are usually easy to identify as they usually have a series of small bolts around the rim of the wheel. The reason for this is because a split rim wheel is made up of two or three parts, held together by these small bolts.

Split rims wheels can have diamond cut and paint finishes, depending on the effect that you are aiming to achieve.

When we refurbish a split rim wheel a lot more work has to be performed by our engineers as they have to remove every single bolt one at a time from the wheel in order to separate it into its component parts. The separate parts then go through the refurbishment process and the wheel is then re-assembled to produce the finished article. That’s why it costs more to have a split rim wheel refurbished, there is a lot more labour time and effort involved in the process.