On three out of my four SE 17" rims there are (one on each) a tiny spot, looks kinda like a paint dripping. Only on 3 rims, and on my dad's SE there are none. What are these? Are they a defect in my rims? Does anyone else have um? A service guy at Nissan saw um for a quick minute and said that I might be able to get new rims for free.

 

Is it red? I have a red spot on two of my rims. It's been there ever since the day I brought it home from the dealer.

 

Nothing on mine, oh wait wrong forum.

 

Yah I had the same problem...i had the service manager come out and he just explained that at the factory each rim is inspected and if it passes the inspector dabs some paint on it. Anyways it just scrapes of with fingernail...they should have caught it before you did..

 

Ya, I have them on mine too..I saw another maxima with them too..i dont know why there is a drop of paint on the rims..

 

LOL, now that is what I am talking about! Brin some humor into this! Thanx sonic

And the paint drippings are a grayish color.

 

Nope, no spots at all.

 

I have the off-white road paint marks on mine... I heard once they denoted that is where the wheel weight goes on the backside...but I never verified this. The paint was too circular to be a "mistake".

 

i have it too. i have them on all four. they look like they were put there on prupose. and i don't think i can take them off by scratching with my fingernails. the paint spots seem like really good paint , even seems like they have clearcoat over them.

 

on 3 of my rims. At 1st I thought they put them there to cover up some scratches possibly during delivery. I never took them off becuz I didn't want to see what was lying beneath but now I know .

 

I got them also, dont' remember on how many rims, but remember noticing them. That's weird.
That be great if we get new rims and get to keep these.
EBAYYYYYYYYY, where u at?

 

I'm pretty sure the dealer put the grey dab of paint to cover up some road chips from test drives or something. It sucks that it's the size of a DIME though. I wish they would have left it alone, so I could have fixed it myself and it wouldn't be as noticeable.

 

One dealer I talked with said the spots indicate where the high spot (flat spot?) is on the rim, since no rims are perfectly round.

I have them on all of my 16" OEM rims. They're about 1/8" in size and are a different color grey than the wheel.

Don't know if I believe the dealer, but they are definitely intentional. Maybe they're for locating interior balancing weights?

 

The spot of paint on the rim is to make sure the tire is mounted correctly. There is also a red dot on the tire, right? The red dot and the silver spot on the rim have to match up.

 

The spots on my rims are white, i got one on each rim. I dunno why they are there but it isn't that big and not really eye catching. I always thought it was for some kind of check that they got the tire and wheel on right. I don't see it as a big deal

 

What ever they are have I have tried to scrach at um with my finger, wash um and wax um and nothing takes um off. It is good to see that everyone has um though.

 

They are balance points. As noted your tires has one also and they should fairly well line up.

If it was just an inpection mark they could have done it on the inside of the rim around the valve hole so that we don't see it. it's made to be seen when mounting a tire.

 

Yes, on my 16" SE wheels, one has a couple of silver paint drips.
Probably the time to address this is before you take delivery of the car. The dealer would gladly switch your wheels for some which have no drips and hope the next buyer doesn't notice them.
At this point I would just ignore the drips. If the dealer attempted to remove them, I'm sure the wheels would look worse.

 

I have the grey dots on three of my rims as well. I don't see a matching dot on the tires though. I wonder if I remove the dots, will it improve my times due to less weight? I bet I can grip the corners better too...

 

Mine has a small whitish/gray spot on the rims. People don't know it's there unless you tell them.

 

Guys...the spots do in fact denote the low or high spot on the rim (can't remember which way it is) so that they can be matched to the tires. Do NOT remove these; but as most of you have tried, and even me before I was educated, you'll find it is practically impossible.

3 of the 4 rims on my car have the small circle of light gray.

Leave them there...they are practically undetectable. Most people don't oogle our cars like we do, so they will never know they are there!

srm

 

the wheels and tires are balanced separately at the factory. in fact, I had my GLE rims swapped with SE rims (both 16s) right after I bought my car. the tire guy lined up the dots on the new rims to the dots on the original tires and lo and behold, perfect balance. The dealer let me trade rims with another car. I asked them to balance the my old rims/tires for the dealer, part of the deal, and again... lined up the dots and I didnt have to pay for the balance. (he did a quick check of them).

(the dealer let me have the rims but I had to keep my own tires.. what a pain, but I didnt complain.. thats the one nice thing they did)

 

Yep..I have a paint spot, similar (not quite same) in color to the Sterling Mist of car, on all wheels....not sure what this is from

 

duh...did you read this thread before posting...the answer is there...

 

Yea I have the spots on 3 out of 4 of my 16" SE/GLE rims. Too bad half of one the spots is scraped off cuz of some curb rash on the rims (curb rash was there when I got the car).

 

LOL, i never though much of them, but now that you mention it, i do have gray spots on all rims. Now i have to go look at them again, yoink!

 

Lighten up Maxmann...the reply wasn't already out there and I apparently don't have as much free time as you. But thanks for the reply.

 

I noticed the spots the first time I washed my rims. After a good bit of effort, I removed them with my fingernail (I thought it was odd that I had four identical spots...my brain was fried and I convinced myself that some road gunk had magically appeared in four identical size marks on each of my rims...DOH!!!).

The question is, is removing the spots going to cause any problems when I go to switch tires?

 

no problems.. that gray dot corresponds to the red dot (which quickly wears off) on the OEM tires. No other tires use that system, and every tires shop on earth will balance your tires on the rims, so its not needed.

 

Personally I don't believe all the excuses such as quality buy off or tire locators for correct balance. I think this problem is so prevalent, that Nissan has given the dealers some B.S. to tell the customers so they go away with something.
If the factory wanted to mark a wheel for quality they would put any mark inside the wheel where it can't be seen - no brainer. Also, wheel balancers tell the operator where to shift the tire for best balance. A grease pencil will do the trick.
I just think it is poor quality control. The spray gun used to paint the wheels inadvertently drops a glob of paint once in a while. My 16 inchers on my SE have one drop on a couple of wheels. I just ignore it. It's not a $50k Benz.

 

I dont make this crap up... I've seen it.. You are missing the point.. the factory doesnt use "wheel balancers". I've seen it in action. I had Nissan AND the tire place tell me that... give that almost every wheel and tire have exactly one dot, and they are matched up when new... it's not really a stretch of the imagination.

Not that it really matters.. they are just tiny gray dots... btw. they are gray for a reason, so you can hardly see them.