[V8] wheels?

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Well, I know that this is the wrong list.  But it is the only Audi list that
I belong to and the only one that I want to belong to, so I'll post the
question here for your input.

My wife's C4 needs front tie rods and over the next six months or so, will
need a bunch of other stuff underneath...front pads and rotors and tires by
fall.  

Last year we had a problem with the right front tire going soft continually.
Finally, I took the car to the wrench and we found that the right front
wheel ("reeeeimmmmmm" in innercity argot)was leaking through the casting.
The wrench applied some magic goop and the tire/wheel combination has been
fine ever since.  

But when we replace tires in the fall, the car will have to have the wheels
replaced.  They look pretty grotty now anyway, and one is suspect...sooner
or later the gloop will fail, and I won't put new tires on suspect wheels.  

So, the options are several.  One is to buy a set of decent used wheels, and
they are readily available.  The issue with doing that is often used wheels
come with one or another with some "issues"...curbing is most often the
cause. 

Secondly, I could send the wheels out and have them rebuilt and refinished.
I don't know how much it will cost to do this, but this is potentially a
viable way to "renew" the wheels and minimal cost, I would think.

Thirdly, we could spring for new wheels entirely.  This is not really
acceptable, I don't think, because now we would have to get into one of
those thankless searches for a wheel that didn't make the car look like
something driven by a drug dealer.  My observation (probably jaded and
wrong) is that any replacement wheel that doesn't look like it should be on
something parked outside of a cheap New Orleans whore house, is very
expensive.

Then, I suppose the fourth possible choice is to buy steel wheels and make
the next set of tires winter tires, planning on a different set for the
summer along with new wheels next year at this time.

The car has around 106,000 miles on it now, and is nearly the perfect
vehicle for my wife, so we have no intention of replacing it.  We will plan
to have the body spruced up a bit...Maine isn't a tender place to have a
nice car like this...and keep the car well toward 200,000 miles.

So, any comments or suggestions?  I wonder if anyone has done the same thing
on whatever car you might have done this.

Roger