Sorry, work's been a bitch lately so I've had to cut back on surfing. The valve stems I had were blue. And I don't really recall if the color loss was more likely related to wear/tear such as abrasion, or if it was the work of the sun.

Aside from certain colors using organic dyes, I think red is notorious for fading b/c the sun takes it's toll more on that pigment b/c of the particular wavelength or something.

So in summary, valve stems were blue, but may have faded due to wear/tear. Hub caps I recall noticing w/ significant fade were red, which may be caused by the organic dye you mentioned.

 

also, did you "polish" (with like actual compound) the little valve stems when you cleaned your wheels? 'cause polishing compound works by removing a thin layer of metal. Overtime you could actually wear through the anodized layer and start pulling color out of the metal. All I got is educated guesses.

 

No, my wheels were painted so no polishing compound was used. Those valve stems/caps were like $3 from Autozone or whatever, so I can't imagine they use the best annoidzing process but I claim ignorance on that subject. I don't know if there's right/wrong way to do that.