This seems to be the silliest thing ever, but for some reason in 2009 they started putting a polished spare on H3's with the optional chrome 7 spoke wheels. Even stranger since they never offered the polished wheels as an option, could this have even saved them any money? It bothered me enough when I bought my current 2010 that I found a set of chrome wheels to buy so I could replace the spare.

That means I have 4 extra chrome wheels and my thought is to offer to trade one at a time to anyone else who is bothered by the non-matching polished wheel (that might even be mounted somewhere other than your spare if you've rotated and/or replaced tires). That will leave me with a full set of 5 polished wheels, likely that will gather dust in my barn until the American Pickers guys come through after I'm gone. The center cap on my polished spare was painted silver (not chrome plated), I don't know if they all came that way or not. If so and you have the painted silver one, I'll trade the chrome for it along with the wheel. No TPS sensors included.

I'll do an even trade, but depending upon where you are and how much shipping will cost, I might need you to take care of shipping both ways.

If it doesn't bother you to have a mismatched wheel, please don't bother to call me OCD or ****, I know that and I'm comfortable with my shortcomings. But if you have some of the same faults I do, let me know and we'll see what we can work out.

 

Good catch!

I noticed this very early on and started collecting them for a full set of 4 (H3T can't see the spare anyway).
Been collecting them for a while not telling people why I wanted them.
I believe we have 3 of the Polished Solid 5 spoke spares up in the Hummer parts attic.

 

The chrome eventually peels and causes the tires to leak air. They don't hold up well to road salt. The spare gets the worst of it if it's behind a hard cover. I found a set of new take offs last year and replaced mine.

 

Could one of you guys post a pic of the polished wheel you are referring to?

 

Here it is, still mounted on the back of my H3 (but with the chrome cap). Not the best picture, but you can probably tell the wheel just isn't as shiny as the chrome cap.

 

That's a clean looking rim. I have the double spoke, takes more time to clean, yet more air flow to the brakes.

 

Thanks. I thought that is what you guys were talking about, but pics are worth............... a lot.

I'm gonna keep those on my radar in case I stumble across them in my travels and Pick n Pull visits.

 

Sorry Tainter, looks like I let the cat out of the bag. If you wander into the attic and find out you do have three, let me know and I'll put your name on this one. Whenever I get a chance to have the tire swapped onto a chrome rim, I'll send it to you if you'll cover the shipping (no return of a chrome one necessary, I still have spares).

Luckily we don't have to deal with the salt issue so the chrome rims hold up well here.

 

Salt here, and my oe chrome rims still look great on the face, although I do notice some blemish inside the spokes.
Most important is to make sure you check the date on the tire, before you consider riding on it.

 

I guess I never even paid any attention to this detail. To me it just seems, well here in Wisconsin the salt fairy eats everything faster than you can pay it off.
I've literally got to spray the underside of my H3 3-4 times with oil (mineral, baby oil, clean 5w30..etc.) (never soy based or corn, vege based) just to keep the tin worm at bay.

My rims are beat and I'd love to pick up 4 nice looking ones but I've looked quite a bit and it just seems they are priced stupidly high in Midwest for decent ones.
I'm thinking sand blasting the ones I've got come spring. It's cheap to purchase the basic gear from HF and media can be gotten at HD.