Just been out washing the wheels and have noticed that the laquer is peeling off the nearside rear wheel. I only got the car in March '05!

So it'll be off to the dealers then. Anyone else had any experience of this?

My goodness - that does sound far to soon for something of that nature to happen.

I do have some experience of such a situation though, as soon years ago I did quite a lot of car valeting work. Quite a few people use these sort of wheel cleaning sprays that you get at Halfords and the like - these are quite acidic and can cause the sort of damage you metion to both alloys and plastic covers. I also had an old Skoda Estelle whose alloy wheels had this problem (I resprayed and lacquered these myself actually).

If you have used a wheel cleaning spray I would suggest not mentioning this to the dealer. I always use just plain old car shampoo and hot water now.

Don't forget to wax your wheels too, makes it easier to clean next time. Any normal wax will do.

But the dealer should correct the wheel, but they may not as they could say it's due to 'weathering'. Hope not though.