Black rim vs Chrome rim Opinion

Inquiring minds want to know!!!

When did it become the "Thing" to have black rims?
Post your opinion on whether you prefer black rims or non-black rims. Also curious to know your age.

I'll start.....

I'm 44 and I prefer non-black rims.

reason: I feel like the rim gets lost on a car when they are black. General opinion though because I know there are some out there that look great.

I'm 23, and while I love a well done "murdered out" car, I didn't want to go that route with mine.

Black wheel started about I wanna say 2000ish here in LA.

Black without a doubt.

The only thing about chrome is the care it needs and after a while it pits and goes bad.

I don't care much for black rims either for a few reasons. You lose most of the detail of the wheel itself due to the dark color... and I hate, hate, hate, when the wheel is darker in color than the tire itself. It's not a good look to have a dark gray tire (you can tire shine it all you want, a black rim will still be darker) and a darker wheel.

That said, I still like dark wheels. Personally I like the gunmetal look. It give a nice contrast between the tire and wheel. You can still see details in the wheel itself, and unless the tire is super dirty, it'll be darker than the wheel itself.

Chrome? Nope. Not in a million years. Looks cheap and tacky on this car. It can look fine on some cars (specifically classics), but it looks hideous on most modern cars. Doesn't stop people from putting those hideous rent a tire rims on their car though.

For a light colored rim, I'm fond of a brushed aluminum kind of look. Just not overly shiny. Gloss is fine, but mirror chrome like finish? Nah.

Just my opinion.

Brushed With clear is a nice touch, gives that multi thousand dollar forged look without the actual high cost.

I'm 63 and wheel finish has always been something that is dependant on the color of the car.

Dark colored cars look better with lighter colored wheels and light colors look better with dark wheels.

My Mustang is Competition Orange and has the gloss black PP wheels. This combination looks killer. My winter wheels are black with machined highlights which also looks great.

I do not like the look of the black PP wheels on black, grey, DIB, etc cars.

I also like the look of polished aluminum over chrome plating but chrome does stand up to the weather better.

dgc333 said:

I'm 63 and wheel finish has always been something that is dependant on the color of the car.

Dark colored cars look better with lighter colored wheels and light colors look better with dark wheels.

My Mustang is Competition Orange and has the gloss black PP wheels. This combination looks killer. My winter wheels are black with machined highlights which also looks great.

I do not like the look of the black PP wheels on black, grey, DIB, etc cars.

I also like the look of polished aluminum over chrome plating but chrome does stand up to the weather better.

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Agreed. Lighter colored rims on darker vehicles and darker rims on lighter colored vehicles. With a darker rim I like gun metal or something that still has a bit of contrast so it stands out.

On silver, white or dark gray cars I prefer dark gray wheels, but on any metallic colored car I prefer polished aluminum or chrome. Black cars in my eyes need either chrome or a painted black wheel with a polished lip. Just my .02

I've been wondering this as well. I have a GT with 20in Foundry Wheels. I've been debating going with a set of black PP wheels, but the Foundry wheels just look so good on the car that I reconsider. I think the charcoal/chrome of the Foundry wheels is a nice contrast to the black car.

Black wheels do look good on some cars, but it hides a lot of detail of the wheels and the contrast of the car and the wheel but looks aggressive. Silver is a beautiful way to go on dark cars. Makes it looks clean / classy look. here some ideas.


My Magnetic Grey on Silver






My Magnetic on Black

Only thing I dislike about my 2015 GT PP is the black wheel.

I'm 60 and I just never got the black wheel thing ever. Like others have stated, you loose the detail of the wheel and it looks like you're just trying to make them disappear. My 98 Cobra and 04 GTO (both were yellow) came with silver painted wheels and I didn't like it. I had the factory wheels chrome plated and they looked great. I planned on putting chrome wheels on my 15 GT but found that I loved the 20" foundry wheels it came with. Wife eventually convinced me to get the chrome wheels. I like them, but think I'm going to go back to the foundry's. Every time I see a pic of somebody's car with the foundry's I just think to myself how really good those wheels look.