Hello Laurence,
I am exploring your site, and discovered this question, and thought I would respond. I wasn’t impressed with my starfish painted wheels, either, and, starting with the spare, succeeded in sanding off all the dull grey/silver paint. I started with a coarse grade of sandpaper, and worked my way to finer and finer grades, ending up at 2000 grit.Application of scratch-remover followed, and finally – polish. Rather like finishing a car body after paint work! The result is I now have a full set of polished aluminum (aluminium) wheels, that look really nice. Each wheel took around six hours of work. If I knew how to (easily) submit a photo, I would!