KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 8 — Just about every car we buy nowadays in Malaysia comes with a set of alloy wheels – the more expensive the car, the more expensive the wheels, if it comes to the matter of replacement and that is providing they are available.

A single piece of , say 16-inch or 17-inch alloy wheel from a car distributor can cost anything from RM2,000 to as high as RM10,000, especially if the car is imported.  A wheel that is damaged in an accident would have to be replaced, and there is nothing much one can do about it.

However, the most heart-breaking part to a car lover would be the minor, low-speed incidents with kerbs – you get a minor ‘scuff’ mark on the side of one of your rims, and although it has not compromised the safety of the rim, it sure makes your heart feel the pain because the marks are permanent and there isn’t much you can do about it.

A similar incident happened to me many years ago – I had just put in a new set of alloy wheels to my car in an inch-up exercise, and barely two weeks after that, in a regretful momentary loss of concentration on a poorly –lit road at night, I grazed a kerb with one of the wheels, and the damage, although not serious, was enough to cause me a major upset for being stupid.

A second incident happened to me with a test car – in heavy rain, I was going through the exit of a shopping complex, you know the ones where you have to drive really close to the right hand side because you have to insert the ticket into the machine so that the barrier will go up? Well, in this particular exit, there was a cement ‘kerb’ high enough to damage wheels, but low enough not to be seen when your car is right next to it, and it was curved to the right, ostensibly to stream cars to the right after the exit barrier – I suppose you can guess that I didn’t see it clearly in the rain, and the front left wheel was a sorry sight.

I still remember the embarrassment of having to tell that car company that I had damaged the wheel. Although they did not ask me to pay for it, I am sure it would have cost possibly half an arm and a leg to get it replaced. Believe me when I tell you it is not a fun thing to damage a wheel on a kerb, no matter how small the damage is.

There are some shops in town that do some refurbishing, usually involving putting in some fillers to hide the scuff marks and repainting. Wheel re-furbishing is expensive, costing up to RM500 or more to refurbish a wheel.

The good news is that there is available now, here in Malaysia, an accessory that can help to protect the rim against scuffing, at the very least. Imported by PaintShield Sdn Bhd, RimPro-Tec is an innovative invention by a New Zealander, currently manufactured in New Zealand and in the USA.  RimPro-Tec fits all wheels from 14-inch to 22-inch, and is fitted to the edge of each wheel rim.

There are two basic parts, the ‘track’, which attaches to the rim and the ‘inner’ which attaches to the track.  There are various colour combinations, and you can select colours that bend in with your wheel colour, or if you want to be different, you can opt for something outstanding. The complete set comes with a simple set of tools for fitting it yourself, or you can opt for it to be fitted at PaintShield.  Prices in Malaysia are RM499.00 for black or silver, and RM599.00 for any other colour.

A beautiful car with scuffed wheels is enough to make a car lover's heart sore. — Pic by Khong Yin Swan