I have a 2002 GLE and my wheels are starting to flake clear coat pretty bad so I've been thinking of stripping and re-clearing them. The problem I see with these wheels is the surface underneath the clear coat is actually ribbed/textured and it doesn't appear that the wheel is painted. Sanding and filling imperfections seems out of the question due to the texture and if I did that I'd have to paint them before clearing. Does anyone have any experience restoring 5.5gen GLE wheels? It's dark out now so I'll post a pic tomorrow.

Any input is appreciated.

I would personally send that job out.
You need them media blasted first. That will remove all of the clear and get into all the grooves and texture, without damaging the wheel.
I would expect to pay between $150-200 for this service.
The you could clear them yourself, or take them to have clear powder coat applied. This would be $2-400.

Would you expect a 2K aerosol clear to stick to a bare wheel or would it need to be primed/painted first? I'm sure powder coating would be better but the cost you're mentioning is too rich for my blood. I was considering using a stripper and a plastic brush to get the old coating out of the grooves as best I could and then clearing. May not be worth the effort though.

The clear should stick to a bare wheel, but it would probably need to be redone every couple years. Generally, the wheels are primed and painted the silver color, with a clear built into the color coat.

From what I can tell the GLE wheels are machined and then cleared with no paint. I may try a little stripper on one of the wheels to see what comes off and decide what I want to do then. It can't end up looking much worse than it already does