What do you guys reccomend for cleaning your alloy rims?

 

I'm **** about my rims- BMW sells a wonderful wheel cleaner- a mild acid- but simple green also works wonders. For the inside of the wheel where buildup causes it to look black from break dust, i use sos pads (will show light surface scratches- but its inside the wheel- and it will look new after cleaning). **do not use sos on the face/lip of your wheel!** after removing all break dust- i like to throw a couple coats of wax on to make the cleaning job easier in the future.

 

yeah my friend gave me a bottle of some acid that they use at auto detail places i didnt know if it would be a smart move to use it, thanks for the input

 

Ask him if it needs to be mixed with water- to neutralize the acid a little bit- If it is straight acid it will smoke :-p Use acid occasionally- but don't make it a habit (it will eat away at your finish)

 

hmmm does ne 1 remember the rule for adding acid w/ water

do you pour water in the acid
or pour the acid in the water

i remember that one of them is a really bad thing to do from chemistry class

 

For wheel cleaners, it doesnt matter. Acid cleaner is not a straight up acid, but is harsh and could stain/ruin wheels. Dilute it 50/50 to be safe

 

Hey i have another question, i saw some nice rims in the junkyard but they had corrosion on them, id get em but before i do how or can you get that corrosion off or out

 

If you could get pics that would help, but most likely the corrosion is etched into the wheel and would be very hard to remove. If they are alloy, you can get them chemically treated and that is supposed to work very well

 

soap and water

 

Simple Green..............never occured to me to use that stuff on my wheels. I've been using that cheep green 2001 stuff

 

 

simple green is by far the easiest and most effective method!!!!!!!

 

i do the same as 01bblack. clean the outside with a general purpose cleaner (bmw uses acid cuz they have HUGE brakes which generate tons of brake dust) and clean the inside with compound and a rag, (after cleaning the surface dust off with all purpose) than i waxed the outside and inside of the rims, so next time you have brake dust you can wipe it off with a dry rag (literally) works great

 

Just be sure that whatever off-the-shelf wheel cleaner you use is safe for clearcoats... I used something years ago on my honeycombs and it basically destroyed the clearcoat...

 

Aww, a little elbow grease and an old rag gets em clean, and builds character.

 

I have two products I use dependent on the type of rim I run across. Normally, I use Eimann Fabrik's Hi Intensity which does a pretty good job of cleaning brake dust. I also own a bottle of P21S Gel wheel cleaner.

 

You pour the acid into the water of course!!!! Do I win a prize or anything.

Acid works good, just make sure it's a little dilute.

 

Only if its reallly concentrated as a measure of safety. Otherwise it does heat up real fast and explodes if u add water to really concetrated acid.

 

Yeah, long as it's safe for clearcoats any kind of wheel cleaner does the trick. Polish them up with some mothers best cleaner.

 

Behold how clean it gets with you get crazy one night with a sweet industrial high temperature steam cleaner! Oh yeah baby...you could eat off these bad boys now!

CM.

 

damn that wheel is pretty clean...ah the power of steam...

 

That wheel looks great!

I've been using Mother's Wheel Cleaner with some elbow grease. Then go over it with the powerball and Mothers alloy polish.

 

Bow down to the power of steam bishes!

 

^Hehe, I wanna do that to my rear 300zxtt wheels now before I put em on. I was thinking of just scrubbing and scrubbing...

 

i spray on with orange blast (similar to simple green i think) to loosen things up a bit then just soap and alot of water and scrubbing. i have a wheel brush that works well but after i get the majority of the dust off i clean the rest by hand with water/comet powder mixture.

 

i scrubbed my rims for like 2 hours today, they still look like crap. but thats cuz i neglected them for like 6 months and i have some non oem brake pads that are dusty as hell. Im gonna try tomorrow with the meguiars crap

 

i only use soap and water + brush

 

How's simple green on rims? I have a bottle for the engine bay and I was thinking of using it on my rims before I use the powerball and mothers cleaner? Figured it would cut through that break dust well. Any thoughts?