Beg to differ friend. When u come down to my house tomorrow, ill show you my jetta wheels I blasted, etch primed, painted and cleared, 3 years ago. I drove the piss off that car and got my brakes HAWT. The paint never was affected. in fact even after a beating on the car, you could still touch the wheel surface/paint and it wasn’t burning your fingers at all. warm but nothing it cant handle.
Rocks and shit hit your front end and hood all the time, but good paint and clear it resists chips. Cars with excessive rock chips are either cheap paint, or LOTS of direct rock impacts. Road debris doesnt hit the sides of the wheels, unless your power sliding gravel roads.
The hot break dust is a good point though. It isnt like a spark from grinding metal though, but the dust does get hot and will cake on the clear. but if you use a good clear coat and keep them clean, it wont be an issue in the long run. My jetta wheels even sat over the last 2 winters with the salt and shit still on them from back then, the bare aluminum lips are shot now, but the paint will just need to be spray detailed and it will be 100% still.
Powder coat still chips like a mother. in fact thick powder coat applications work against you, the thicker it is the deeper a rock or impact will go into the surface coating, and will allow it to chip easier. Once powder coat chips, water gets under VERY easy, and separates the hardened powder coating from the surface its applied to.
ATV arms from the factory come PAINTED. hitting field grass, and small soft surface stuff while you ride, actually sands the paint off and will actually polish the bare metal left behind. Roosted dirt and rocks actually dont leave behind as many chips in the OEM paint as you would think. its because the paint is thin, and the impacts translate right through the paint into the metal.
Aftermarket POWDER COATED arms resist the grass and soft surfaces that usually sand the surface away. but they get chipped all to hell from roost and rocks. because the impacts dont go right into the metal to disburse the impact forces, the powder coat itself absorbs alot of the sharp impact, and because of the surface hardness of powdercoating, being rather brittle if you may, the impact pressures get translated into the coating and it causes it to crack/chip.
SMOKENSS I know you will atest to this. You have run alot of aftermarket suspensions on your race quads, VS the painted stock stuff. Do you notice the same thing I am saying?