Curb Rash and How to Fix it
Hollywood Forever Cemetery - watch out for those low curbs reaching out to get you!
Hollywood Forever Cemetery in LA is famous as the place movie stars are buried, so it is fitting that this is the location that my rim went to die. The events of that day led me on a quest from shock and sadness to the determination to find a solution, and here’s how it happened.
Freshly full of Thai food, the plan was to walk around the cemetery and burn it off. It was a nice weekend day, no rush. Rolling into Hollywood Forever required precise navigation since the living were everywhere walking in the street. No problem, again I wasn’t in a hurry. Finally pulled off in a wide spot on the road and CRUNCH. What seemed a flat surface was actually a 1 inch curb - just enough to grab onto the aluminum rim and rip.
Curb rash on about a quarter of the rim dang it!
I’ll skip the curses and colorful expressions. Fast forward and I was researching options. The Tesla Model 3 Performance comes with dark Überturbine rims and sources were split on if they could be color matched or not. For a moment, I thought about getting them stripped and powder coated, but determined I would save that money for new rims down the road. No, now it was just a matter of getting them looking right again. Through a fantastic recommendation by PARTS3XPRESS I found Rich’s Rim Repair.
A couple images sent over text, and Rich confirmed that he could fix it by smoothing it down and paint matching. He was incredibly fast, the whole repair took about 30 minutes, and I didn’t even have to get out of the car. I struggle to even see where the rash was to begin with.
After the repair, it is like it never happened.