Wheel Repair - Houston Area?

[M3OwnerHtown]

Guys,
I have some curb rash on my 2 of my wheels and curious to know the positive/negative experience and feedbacks with any of the following vendors on price & quality wise:
1. SABS in Houston off Ponderosa
2. IMC in Houston off Schumacher
3. Wheels America in Houston off Sherwood

I have a black E92 coupe so I'm also debating to powder coat my OEM 19's black - not sure matte finish or glossy - any suggestions?

Thanks

[Lemans_Blue_M]

Originally Posted by M3OwnerHtown

Guys,
I have some curb rash on my 2 of my wheels and curious to know the positive/negative experience and feedbacks with any of the following vendors on price & quality wise:
1. SABS in Houston off Ponderosa
2. IMC in Houston off Schumacher
3. Wheels America in Houston off Sherwood

I have a black E92 coupe so I'm also debating to powder coat my OEM 19's black - not sure matte finish or glossy - any suggestions?

Thanks

#3

End thread.

[navfaz]

I had two of my wheels re done on my last car because they had some serious cub damage and SABS fixed them perfectly but I've also dealt with Wheels America when my moms wheels were bent pretty bad and they're great too. It depends who has better pricing i guess because both were good.

[rzm3]

I wouldn't go to SABS. Check out my review from a while back:

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthr...highlight=sabs

[M3OwnerHtown]

Update: So I went to IMC and SABS this past weekend and here's my experience.
IMC: When I went to IMC the shop itself is cluttered and not very organized but thought I wouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I meet with an older gentlemen name Joe(believe he was the owner). We walked out and I spoke to him about getting my curb rash repaired and also about having my wheels powder coated a matte black. He was quite informative and explained to me what their process is for wheel repair and even advised not doing the powder coating because it wouldn’t look good on a jet black M3. I found this surprising as most vendors would not push away business and respected his opinion. He stated that they do a lot of BMW’s and Mercedes and quoted me a fair price of $135/wheel for fixing any bends, curb rash, and mounted/ balanced with a one day turn around. For the powder coating he quoted $125/wheel. Overall good experience in obtaining a estimate.
SABS: They have a big facility and seem quite organized. I meet with a gentlemen(didn’t get his name) there and he asked for me to pull in my vehicle to inspect the wheel. He got one of his guys to remove the wheel and put it on the balancer to see if any bends. As I waited another customer showed up and he ran off to help them and was waiting for 20-25mins. He came back and spun the wheel on the balancer and stated if I wanted to fix the “inner” or “outer”. I was bit confused and asked him what do you mean as who would only want to fix one issue and not both(bend & curb rash). He stated if I wanted to fix the slight bend it would be $135 and if I wanted to fix the curb rash it would be additional $175 = $310 in total. I was shocked and asked him why so much and he mentioned that its a lot of work and I told him that IMC quoted me a significantly lower price. The guy got mad and said I don’t care what IMC quoted and walked away. Terrible customer service from my standpoint and definitely would never do business with someone like that. Overall, stay away from SABS but then again this is my personnel experience !!! I feel the pain Rldzhao must have experienced and I just went in for an estimate.

[xsilvor]

I called Metropolitan Collision today, and they outsource their wheels repairs/refinishes to IMC. Based on all the recommendations for Metropolitan, I'd say that's another good reason to go with IMC. I'll be calling them for a quote tomorrow .

Also, in case you're still shopping around:
Motorwerks: $200/wheel not including any repairs. Full pigmented powder coat.
WheelsAmerica: $129/wheel, incl. repairs. Water based base coat, powder coat clear coat. (I asked Nate @ IND about that, and he said he has not heard of a clear coat that is also a powder coat, so now I'm confused).

[xsilvor]

Ok, I finally had a chance to call IMC, and they told me that they do not do powdercoating. Did they just not like the sound of my voice?

[M3OwnerHtown]

Xsilvor, that's weird maybe the person you spoke to wasn't the Mgr? First time I called the guy on the phone wasn't very helpful at all but when I went in person totally different attitude. If you're interested we can go there together and see if we can cut a deal on the powdercoating. They're open Sats from 9am-1pm as well.

[xsilvor]

Actually, I'm going to be heading out to Houston Power Coating (http://www.powdercoatinghouston.com/) out in Keemey (I actually dont have a clue where that is) on Saturday. A friend and I are dropping off our wheels, and get this: $80/wheel.

I'll let you know how it goes, but you'd think that a professional powedercoating shop would do better than a shop that just does wheels (especially since they probably outsource it to these guys anyway ).

They are not normally open on Saturdays, but said they would have someone there to meet us, which is a big plus in the customer service department already.

[xsilvor]

Wee.