How to refurbish your Sport spec centre caps

A2Steve

A2OC Donor
Wales
So in my quest to make my low mileage FSI as good as it can be, the next job on the list was the centre caps. I didn’t want to use Chinese copies as I’d rather keep it original so I set about doing what I could to refurb the factory ones.

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The first job is to separate the outer aluminium surround from the plastic centre. This is done by using a flat head screwdriver to gently lift up the outer edge. There are also 3 l-shaped clips that need to be bent straight to release it.
The Audi rings just push out from the bask.
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You are then left with 3 separate parts. I used my glamorous assistants to give them a good clean for me (Harriet and Felicity 6&3).
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It’s up to you what paint you use, but I used plastidip anthracite for the centres and a chrome effect paint for the exterior, mainly because I already had them :)
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You then need to clip them all back together and use a mallet or similar to press the outer ring onto the plastic body of the centre cap.

And voila
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This is very timely as I've got some scruffy old centres due to arrive in a couple of days. But do you happen to know if it would be the same sort of process for 16" SE ones?
 
I didnt bother removing the alloy ring on my SE ones, although it looks the same process.
I just rubbed them down to remove all the lacquer, removed the centre emblem (4 rings) undercoated and painted the whole centre cap the same colur as the wheels. I was happy with the results.
 

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Good job there, although I did wince when I saw the rubber hammer and your lap, did you want more children? o_O:eek:
 
What a useful thread! My ropey looking hubcaps (£25 + postage on eBay) arrived this afternoon and sure enough the aluminium rings were terribly corroded. See photo from the listing....
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However I prised them off (not very gently as they were destined for the bin) and 30 minutes later after a quick scrub up I was left with a very presentable set of caps, photo of one below. I don’t think they lose much cosmetically by not having the aluminium ring.
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The Audi rings on a couple of them are a little scruffy, I’ll remove and restore them in slower time.

Nice that I could find a job that wasn’t beyond me:)
 
What a useful thread! My ropey looking hubcaps (£25 + postage on eBay) arrived this afternoon and sure enough the aluminium rings were terribly corroded. See photo from the listing....
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However I prised them off (not very gently as they were destined for the bin) and 30 minutes later after a quick scrub up I was left with a very presentable set of caps, photo of one below. I don’t think they lose much cosmetically by not having the aluminium ring.
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The Audi rings on a couple of them are a little scruffy, I’ll remove and restore them in slower time.

Nice that I could find a job that wasn’t beyond me:)
Look great. You achieved that outcome with just sanding? Impressive.
 
Look great. You achieved that outcome with just sanding? Impressive.

They didn’t even need sanding. When I removed the aluminium rings there was a lot of caked on brake dust (or gunk of some other kind) but I just scrubbed them with an old toothbrush and water and buffed them up with a cloth, they came out looking pristine save for a couple of the Audi rings which have a bit of metallic finish missing if you look closely. Amazingly simple job.
 
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