I noticed that some of you guys have two sets of wheels, one for spring/summer and one for winter/fall. I'm assuming that your most expensive wheels are the ones you save for summertime so you can floss & profile and all that other mess, but I was curious as to how you store your wheels and keep them from getting corroded, but I'm particularly interested in finding out about the tires, especially if you deflate the tires while you store them or not, and any particular method you use to keep your expensive wheels/tires clean & in great shape while you have them in storage.


Although I lost my car to these unusually bad California storms, I just purchased a set of chrome 18" MKW M12 wheels with Dunlop SP Sport FM901 (215/40/ZR 18) that I purchased from a friend, and I'm going to have to store them until I get another Maxima, so I'm curious as to how best to store them without a lot of hassle. Should I remove them, clean them up really good and put them in huge garbage/plastic bags and put them side-by-side? I don't want to stack them on top of each other for fear of damaging the chrome.

Please let me know what's the best thing to do. FYI - I have my eye on a green 1997 GLE right now - we'll see how that turns out!

Thanks!

 

Sorry to hear about your Max Pit5bull.

Anyway, to store a summer set you remove them, clean them well, let them dry, maybe give the wheels a coat of wax, and then put them in extra large garbage bags and tie them up. Store them stacked on top of each other with cardboard in between. Do not deflate. Try to keep them somewhere where they're not going to get super cold (shouldn't be an issue in Calif. I guess) or sit in the sun and bake. A cool, dark basement or corner of your garage is fine.

If you really want to NOT stack them, then you're going to have to figure out a way to hang them on your garage wall or something by the bolt holes. You shouldn't store them sitting side by side.

HTH

 

@Bman...

Thanks for the condolences, bro. A co-worker of mine (albeit a Civic owner, but an import car performance nut nonetheless) advised me to stack the wheels too, but to clean them up without chemicals first, let them dry, then wrap them in towels & stack them somewhere cool. Have you heard of using that Scunci steamer to clean chrome wheels? I heard it's excellent!

I'm hoping that our rainy weather is pretty much gone for the most part because we've gotten more rain in these last two weeks than we've gotten in almost two years, so you know there's been all kinds of problems here. I'm planning to mount them to my new ride, which will hopefully be very soon. I'll take your advise and put cardboards between the wheels when I clean them up and stack them in the garage. I was wondering, though, if I should put the bottom wheel on top of some wood first, then cardboard, just to keep it off the ground until I get ready to mount them again, or should I just go floor - cardboard - wheel 1 - cardboard - wheel 2 - and so on. Even though I didn't spend much on these wheels, I know they're expensive, so I want to take the best care of them that I can...

Let me know if anybody has used the Scunci steamer or anything like it to clean their wheels/tires with and if it's advisable to do so. If it's as good as the advertisements say, I'll get one this weekend just to have around the house to clean up stuff...

Thanks again guys!

 

I just put mine in a stack in the corner of the garage, each one in its own garbage bag. No cardboard. I've never had any problems with them like that. Mind you those are stock wheels. Adding cardboard between them can't hurt. You don't have to be all that carefull really. Remember these are wheels, not fragile pieces of glass.

A steamer would be pretty cool to clean wheels with actually. I would immagine it would be really good at getting bits of road tar off the insides of the wheels. I can't see any reason why it would damage the wheels. So long as you don't do something stupid and hold it on one spot for 5-10 minutes at a time and use really harsh chemicals.

Once they're cleaned up, throw some wax on them to keep them looking nice.

CM

 

@CanadianMoFo...

What kind of wax should I use on them? I've never heard of waxing wheels before... I have all the Meguiar's wax products for the paint, so I'm curious as to what I need to get so I can have it at the ready. The steamer uses plain water, and of course the info-mercials make them look like the best cleaning utensil since the vacuum cleaner... I think I'm going to get one anyway and see how well it works, do the before/after pictures, etc. They go for about US$60, and comes with all the doo-hickeys to clean virtually everything that can be safely cleaned with steam...

Thanks for all of the advice, guys! I really appreciate it.

 

Using chemicals are fine to clean, as long as you rinse it properly. If you want to be paranoid about it though, you could try the steamer (as long as the wheels aren't icy cold), or just use soapy car shampoo solution to clean them. I don't know anything about those steamer gizmos though. Not sure what the towels are for, but I guess you could throw a little dessicant pack in there instead if they're for absorbing moisture... Floor or wood underneath is fine since they're bagged.

Meguiar's Cleaner Wax is fine, and probably not a bad choice since it's self-prepping and could help polish the surface up a tad. You don't really need anything special or super tough for storage.

 

Those rims aren't worth cleaning

 

why do you just go on every thread and flame everyone about their rims?

Let people get what they want to get.

You paid like $3000 for your SSR's and they dont look special to me??