Are the polished wheels clearcoated?

[sethsquire]

I have the polished wheels on my 4 and they sure have a lot of swirl marks on them, even with like 1400 miles. Frankly, with the amount of brake dust that the car produces, I think it would be literally impossible to clean the wheels without getting swirl marks. I was wondering about polishing out the swirls, but wasn't sure if the wheels were raw polished aluminum or clear-coated. I'm leaning towards the latter, because they have painted grey pockets on them.

In any event, I probably won't even bother polishing them if they're clearcoated, because they'll just get messed up again, but curious if it was even a possibility.

 

[John]

I'd imagine they are clear coated otherwise they would oxidize rapidly. You can tell pretty easily if you use a small amount of metal polish, a light colored cloth and rub a small area. If it turns black it's not clear coated.