I drive a 2000 GMC Sierra 1500 . I bought it used. It has 16 inch steel wheel rims, but with a thin chrome plated steel cover over the entire rim . ( But, it does not cover the center hub or the lug nuts.) There is also a plastic center cap that is held on by 6 plastic nuts that screw on over the lug nuts. There are 5 half-round styling holes in the rims and covers. Some serious rust has formed between the steel rim and the chrome cover , and I need to remove the chrome covers. The covers seem to be crimped over the top edge of the rims , next to the tire beads, but there may be something else I need to know before I try to pry off the chrome covers. As far as I know, these are factory rims, but the service manual and the owner's manual say and show nothing about these rim covers. Your sage advice , please ?
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Wheel Rim Covers
- Thread starter Bill325
- Start date
I answered my own question today about removing the chrome wheel rim cover on my 2000 GMC Sierra. That rim was badly rusted , and to fully inspect it the chrome cover had to come off. The answer was brute force. The cover does seem to be crimped over the rim, but mostly it's held onto the rim with multiple beads of an adhesive. A large pair of " nippers" , as in steel nail cutters, grabbed hold of the cover, and ripped it off. These rims, which do seem to be factory installed, have a bad rust problem for two reasons ; The two piece rims are welded together in such a way that a rather deep crevice is created that holds dirt, water, and road salt in place until it rusts the rim. The chrome cover makes the rust problem even worse by trapping dirt between the cover and the rim. The spare tire has the same type of rim, but with no chrome cover, which leads me to believe that the rims are factory type. What terrible design ! I searched around my property for other rims, and I found none that would trap dirt and water so badly . I have rims going back to 1937, sitting outside, that are in better condition than my 2000 GMC rims. The rust is so deep on two of my GMC rims that I'm surprised they even hold air ! Just another substantial expense for this vehicle, caused by poor design and/or poor materials. Some time between 1989 and 2000, all of the good engineers seem to have left GM !