Bought my S5 in February, it came with a set of 20" staggered vossen's VVS-078 I believe. Both front wheels had quite a lot of curb rash on the stainless steel lip. I contacted Alex at Vossen and he was NO help whatsoever.
I dont recall his exact words but you'll get the gist of it.

"To replace the stainless steel sheet lip we would need a lip which we dont have, we need a special machine which we dont have anymore and these wheels are discontinued"

"The lips are pressed and glued on, theres no telling what it looks like under the lip, i believe there are pockets"

I had the tire removed from the wheel yesterday and I pulled the lip off today with a set of vice grips gently prying it away from the lip of the wheel. The result--a glossy black enamel finish with no weird geometry, it looks great! I'm a bit relieved now. The curb rash on the front wheels was enough for me to want to throw these away. a little of the paint along the circumference of the wheel chipped off when i was pulling the lip off but thats fine. I plan on having the areas powder coated the same black finish. Its going to look amazing with the black S5. IM STOKED!!!

I know there are others out there that have considered removing the lip but the same concerns arose. I hope someone could get good use from this as there is barely any info on the subject out there.

Cheers,
Alex

 

Thanks for posting this, I have stainless lips on my fairly new rims and have repaired curb rash once with a rotary polisher and a polishing kit from eBay, they came up just like new. \but now i have a few dents in them so they mite need removing in the future.

 

+1 On removal of the lip. It looks a lot better to me. I dont have rims like yours, But since you have done this would you recomend a certain tool for the removal? Or tricks to the removal without damage.

 

Nice job...I'm thinking if I should do this to my VMR 715's. Worried that the lip underneath won't follow the curve of the ring. I know they're different brand of wheels but do you remember what the inner side contour of your lip looked like?

 

I used a pair of a couple different sizes of flat screwdrivers to gently pry up the lip away from the wheel (where the tire bead sits). After slightly prying the lip, I was able to latch on with a pair of curved jaw vice grips and pry it further, then I moved a few inches away, along the circumference with the vice grips and pryed back and worked my way around the wheel. Luckily I had only minor paint chipping, I took it to my local wheel shop and he painted just the lip area black with an epoxy based coating.

 

I had no idea and I've been racking my brain and about to spend a fortune and this is perfect. Did you have to take the tire off or can it be done with wheel on car and tire on wheel? I'm so pumped. Thank you!!!!