I have a 2010 Expy EL LTD. One of the CCW's has a tarnished area that I cannot clear either, it almost looks like a large gold splotch. The chrome clad wheels are an embarrassment to automotive engineering. The people at Ford that designed them and approved them to be included on the higher end models should be fired. IN addition to the finish going bad, there is basically no repairing a curb-damaged wheel like you can with a polished or painted aluminum wheel. At least the 2011 models have done away with these ridiculous plastic wheels. The honorable thing for Ford to do would be to allow recent model owners to change to the newer style wheels at factory cost. I will probably just buy some aftermarket wheels, which will be expensive given the tire pressure sensors have to be removed form the old wheels and put on the new ones. I think there are some kits available to re-install the factory sensors on aftermarket wheels. If anyone has experience with this, I would appreciate hearing about it. Sorry if this has been already answered and I missed it.

 

Sorry I forgot to update. I took the Expy back to the big dealer I bought it from. They uploaded pictures to Ford's new Warranty claims system. Some one at Ford looked the pictures over and denied the warranty. They claimed the discollored wheels were a result of something being sprayed on the wheels. The dealer hired a wheel polishing guy to that actually took the wheels off one at a time and spent about 2 hours on each wheels. He got them to shine up pretty nice. It didn't get rid of everything but they look a lot better. He even stated that some of the discoloring is under the clear and couldn't be fixed without replacement. I have a feeling that Ford is trying to brush this problem under the rug. The dealer told me they did replace one set on a brand new vehicle because of a similar problem but they ended up eating most of the cost. Mine was purchased used and they were not about to eat $1000 worth of wheels. At least they paid for the polishing guy. He told me he usually charges $100 per wheel for what he did to mine.

 

The dealer just replaced one of my wheels under warranty (6 mo old 6000 mi) w/no hassle.

 

Update on this thread. Went in to see if the dealer would replace another wheel that had the same problem but with a smaller area. The local dealer here who replaced the first wheel told me Ford back-charged them for the warranty repair (stuck them with the bill) and they could not replace the other one without getting the Ford area rep involved. The Ford customer service people reviewed the case and said that the discoloration was caused by something external, therefore not their problem. IF this was caused by something external, it was on the way from the factory to dealer. What kind of wheels are so easily discolored? Low quality ones. Defective ones. Ones that are discoloring due to a manufacturing defect. One of my other vehicles is a Lexus and they would not hesitate to make a replacement for something like this, because they want their customers to be happy and they take responsibility for the quality of their products. I agree with you, ztekdesign, that Ford is sweeping this under the rug.
The wheels here have a chrome plated plastic cladding. Chrome plating plastic includes the following steps:
1) Electroless copper or nickel is plated onto the surface of plastic part to metallize the plastic part and make it conductive for the subsequent electroplating steps.
2) Copper is deposited 10-25 µm thick
3) Nickel is deposited 8-20 µm thick
4) Lastly chromium is deposited 0.1-0.25 µm thick (note the thinnnest layer)
There are a couple other methods, but I'm guessing Ford/Ford's parts supplier uses this one.
What I think is happening is that the electroplating process was not properly done - possibly affecting many wheels in production based on this an other threads and what is being seen is copper from the copper layer is reacting with the outer layers or the outer nickel or chrome layers were improperly applied or are too thin.
I'm generally PO-ed at Ford's poor customer service, so the next step for me is to get an expert opinion from a true plating expert, then explore if an individual or class-action suit is warranted.

 

I would ask the dealer to put that in writing...Ford will then take care of it.

 

I have asked for documentation from FOMOCO about this to set up the paper trail. I'm doubting it will change anything but will let you know if it does. The local dealer here has actually been great for all service; they replaced the first wheel w/o consulting the factory because it was obvious to them there was a factory defect. I'm guessing Ford corporate is just trying to avoid any admission of a problem to avoid the cost of replacing wheels for other customers in the same boat. Seems like problems that are not safety-related (where you can get the help of NHTSA) are harder to resolve w/o resorting to legal pressure.

 

The regional ford manager can really help here as well......I had a wheel on my Mark LT that had a defect underneath the chrome plating (a dent)....lincoln replaced with no questions. The ford dealer should be able to provide all the documentation (not fomoco)...also get the exact name of the wheel detailer...then ask the dealer to coontact Ford Region...it will get fixed real fast!