Diamond Cut Wheel Repair in Oldham

Yes, OL3 is part of the normal round. The only thing we check first is access, because some of the lanes and yards up there are tight for a van and we need to sit close enough to the car to run the lathe and get the wheels back on. Send a photo of where the car parks if you are unsure.

Height and ground matter more than distance. A level driveway is easiest; a sloping cobbled yard is workable but slower. On the exposed roads above the villages we also keep an eye on the forecast, because lacquer will not cure in cold, damp air and a badly cured face will cloud within a few months.

• OL1 across Oldham town centre
• OL2 around Royton
• OL3 through the Saddleworth villages
• OL4 on the eastern edge of town
• OL8 and OL9 covering Chadderton

Stone, mostly. Walls, kerbs and the loose grit that washes off the moor onto the lanes all attack the same part of the wheel, which is the outer edge of the machined face. Because there is no primer or basecoat under a diamond cut finish, one firm scrape exposes bare metal straight away rather than just marking a coloured lacquer.

Potholes are the other regular cause on this side of the borough. Frost gets into the lane surfaces every winter and the edges break up, and a hard drop into one of those bites the rim as well as chipping the face. We dress the damaged rim edge back before the wheel goes on the lathe, then re-cut the pattern right around the face.

• Dry stone walls on the narrow Saddleworth lanes
• Grit washed off the moors after heavy rain
• Pothole edges opened up by winter frost
• Road salt from the gritting runs over the tops
• Kerbing on town centre parking around OL1 and OL9

A diamond cut alloy wheel is one where the face has been machined on a lathe to expose polished aluminium, then sealed with clear lacquer. The rest of the wheel, usually the pockets between the spokes and often the inner barrel, is painted in a colour such as anthracite, gunmetal or gloss black, which gives the two tone look of a bright face against a dark background.

The finish is common on modern and higher specification cars, and there are a lot of variations. Some wheels are cut across the full face, some only to the outer half of the spoke, and the pitch of the machining differs between manufacturers. That is why the repair needs a lathe and a technician who has cut that style of wheel before, rather than a spray gun and a good eye.

The trade off is durability. Nothing sits between the lacquer and the metal, so stone chips, weathering and winter road salt take a diamond cut wheel apart far faster than they would a standard painted alloy.

We cover the whole Oldham borough from Radcliffe, roughly 25 minutes away, including the Saddleworth villages where narrow lanes and stone walls keep our wheel technicians busy. Rochdale and Middleton jobs are often grouped onto the same day.

We work throughout Oldham and the OL1, OL2, OL3, OL4 postcode areas, typically 25 minutes from the body shop at Radcliffe, M26 4AD. That includes Oldham town centre, Chadderton, Royton and Saddleworth.