Going Commando

[Yaris Hilton]

Lost one of my spinners. Now I've got three sets of three custom hubcaps, and those original ones of course. I went bare with the naked steelies. Had to scrub them by hand with strong citrus cleaner to get the caked on dull stuff off, painted the rusting bare spindles in the front hubs and shined them up with Pledge. (It works for tire shine, too.)

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs061.ash2/36427_438956552811_693517811_5762282_6106944_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs141.snc4/36427_438956567811_693517811_5762283_2156169_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs141.snc4/36427_438956577811_693517811_5762284_1078050_n.jpg

[KCALB SIRAY]

looking good

[06silveryaris]

nice and clean

[yarrr]

Makes you wonder why people put god awful hubcaps on their cars.. First mod anyone with hubcaps should do. In fact the next car I buy I'll leave them at the dealer so they don't take up room in my garage for 6 months, and then in the dump.(yes my next car will probably come with hubcaps too... I don't aim very high. lol)

Steelies FTMFW...

oh and don't use pledge on your car, especially on rubber

[wooverstone8]

Nice!

[thebarber]

time for rims

[ChilliwackGuy]

wow - way 2 keep it clean! nice work.

[Yaris Hilton]

Thanks!

[cali yaris]

oh and don't use pledge on your car, especially on rubber

I don't, but now I'm curious. Why not?

[brg88tx]

anybody ever try to put a chrome rim on the outer edge of their steelies. that combined with some chrome lug nuts might look good.

[yarrr]

I don't, but now I'm curious. Why not?

Well besides the obvious that the bottle says its made for wood furniture in your house, not plastic and rubber on your car, it has solvents which are bad for rubber, and despite the new marketing campaign to the contrary, it does leave greasy residue..(If it didn't leave a residue, why would you spend millions convincing me it doesn't?) I also have very high doubts as a tire shine it would last more than a day or two, and I could see the ugly brown coming from it very easily.

You could probably spread bacon grease on your car and make it look shiny. But actual car product companies have put a lot of time and money into R&D making products that make your car shiny, keep it shiny, and don't damage it.

anybody ever try to put a chrome rim on the outer edge of their steelies. that combined with some chrome lug nuts might look good.

Yup its been done. It looks pretty good, but I think all black steelies give the yaris a more aggressive look than most rims out there.

http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14305&highlight=trim+rings

[toy_toronto]

Thanks for the link.

I might go black steelies too like Yaris Hilton's cool sedan... but I wonder if would I actually do it when winter/snow arrive.

Painted hubcaps perhaps seems like a good option too like spookz did to his. Anyone else painted their caps instead of commando/trim rings?

Haha, I'm loving my stock hubcaps.. a little spraypaint does wonders.. =)

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l252/EVAQ8/DSC02308_09_10_11_12_HDR_800x450_K0.jpg


.

[thebarber]

i just run on 14" steelies for winter...no caps, cus i think they're ugly

ive run trim rings on my 14's for a while w/ chrome lugs....was good from far, but far from good. up close it looked more ghetto than actually running straight steelies ...

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/dabarber/yaris/april%2008/yarisapril0803.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/dabarber/yaris/april%2008/yarisapril0804.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/dabarber/yaris/pei/pei001.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/dabarber/yaris/pei/pei010.jpg

then one flew off on a hard corner coming back from PEI...and was subsequently run over... :(
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/dabarber/yaris/pei/pei039.jpg

[Yaris Hilton]

Pledge does contain a small amount of solvent, which evaporates quickly. Come on, if it won't hurt wood furniture finishes, it's unlikely to attack tire rubber. You drive through gasoline and oil spills all the time that are worse than that. Tire rubber's about 1/3 mineral oil. I've painted tires with old school tire black that was nothing but thinly diluted black oil paint in mineral spirits, sold expressly for the purpose of blackening and shining up tires. Pledge is not oily. It's a water based emulsion, water being the main ingredient. My wife's been quick-shining my shoes for years with Pledge, and it's never produced any deleterious effects on leather, rubber or plastic shoe parts. I didn't tell anybody to use it. If you're worried about it, don't do it. So far it's staying nice and shiny and black longer than the tire foam I've been using.

http://www.whatsinsidescjohnson.com/en-us/products-by-brand/pledge/pledge-natural-beauty.aspx

[WeeYari]

oh and don't use pledge on your car, especially on rubber

Make a statement like that, back it up. Otherwise it's just a baseless opinion.

[yarrr]

Make a statement like that, back it up. Otherwise it's just a baseless opinion.

I did back it up, not that I really needed to or at this point want to. I have a feeling if someone can read furniture polish on a can and spray it on everything but furniture, I'm gonna have a hard time convincing them of anything. I don't recall seeing any cans of pledge laying around at car shows either.. But as Hilton said, do as you want. I'm not gonna jump through the screen and stop anyone.


Did you know? You can use old motor oil to fertilize your lawn.

[RedHatch08]

I've thought about painting my caps in a darker grey or black like spookz. It's not as good as rims of course, but it looks pretty decent.

Oh, and speaking of unintended uses for liquids: You can use tranny fluid to clean and restore fiberglass. Really. Saw a guy use it on a dirty old boat, and it worked like magic.