I know my car is an absolute bucket when the joke "The wheels are just gonna fall off the thing." proves to be true. It's funny for a minute, they it hits you how close you are to something terrible. Ideally I'd like to keep the car in a state where my engine duct tape job and 2x4 hood prop are the laughable bits, not the lurking danger of rusting wheels.
Twenty years later, my 4runner's stock aluminum rims are seeing some pretty bad corrosion, with bits of aluminum flaking off to reveal some worrying rot. On one rim the corrosion ate through the rim and wound up bursting a tire. At that point I looked at some new rims, however, recently I've been wanting to do a full restoration job and would like to keep the original rims. I've heard of restoring aluminum rims, but there is nothing on how long they last after a restoration. I've heard of people doing it, but never actually seen any restored.
Unless it's a quick procedure to do it myself I really don't have the time to do it all on my own, and I have more important things to fix on the 4runner (I'm looking at you frame rust and exhaust holes). So that leaves bringing the rims into a shop, where I'm not sure the quality I'm going to receive.
I'm not even sure if they can be restored with the sorry state they are in. I'll attach images later, when I can get taptatalk working.
Any feedback help a ton. I just want to know if it's worthwhile to restore the rims, shop or by hand. How long they last, and if mine can even be restored.

I'd buy a set of 5th gen takeoffs for a few hundred bucks and toss the old ones in the garbage. will probably cost the same and be much less headache

They look pretty nice on the 4th gen. Ideally I'd like to keep the original rims just to keep it original. Otherwise, I love the look of the 5th gen rims, and I'll keep it in mind in case I can't restore them or if a restoration just not financially worth it. Thanks for input.

I don't know what style rims you have but if you google Toyota wheels you should get a few sites that sell restored stock rims. Might be woth looking into instead of doing yourself.

If thé wheels have aluminium chunks falling off. Time for new take offs, off of Cl or Fb

Photos

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IMHO, you're going to spend more refurbishing those wheels than buying 4th or 5th gen wheels in good condition. You'd need to media blast yours and then polish/paint.

Those look just like mine, I think what you are seeing is the coating coming off not actual aluminum. One thing to note when this starts happening, it seems to be typical that you start having slow leaks as it's also happening under the bead. I popped 2 of mine off the bead so I could wire wheel that section to remove the flaking coating.

Common issue, just sand away and paint it with your preferred color. If you take your time with the prep work they come out really nice.

That would explain why my tires lose pressure so fast. The one that is not attached to the car is the one that blew out while driving, For some reason that one is particularly bad, I'm not entirely sure why that one rotted as bad as it did. Glad to know they are still salvageable.

Can you add a picture of the blowout?

It's not as spectacular as it sounds. It looks like the rim cut into the tire when I went up my driveway curb. Wasn't going fast at all maybe 5-10 MPH+, just heard a loud pop and watched the front end drop. I'll attach an image later.

I paid about $70 per wheel shipped for 5th-gen takeoff wheels, and I like the style better than the originals like OP has. Powdercoaters charge close to $100 per wheel last time I looked

Ah, I misunderstood completely. I thought you meant the rim has a corroded hole in it. This makes more sense as that wheel metal is pretty thick.

I'm contemplating these for mine. 5 Toyota 4runner rims and tires - auto parts - by owner - vehicle...

Sorry for the delay.
I definitely coulda worded that better. My bad.

Otherwise those look dope!

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