Protecting Wheels
Feeding your car wheels is easy, just give them a fresh new tyre every 10,000 to 30,000 miles. The wheel will consume the tyre tread over a period of time dependent upon it’s hunger level. If you drive the car rather enthusiastically, the wheel will get very hungry and eat the tread very quickly, If your driving habits are more conservative, then your wheels will have less of an appetite and only pick at the tyre.
One of the questions most often asked is “What do I use to clean my wheels?” The correct answer is use the least aggresive cleaning method possible. If you keep up with the accumulation of brake dust, a simple car wash solution may be enough. If you allow the brake dust to build up, then you will have to resort to stronger cleaning agents.
To discuss cleaning methods or chemicals, we should first discuss the agents that attack your wheels. The main culprit is brake dust. Brake pads are made from several components, including monofilament carbon fibres, metal filings and polymer based adhesives. The brake pad adhesive is the root of most of our problems.
When the adhesive residue (a component of brake dust) becomes wet, it turns acidic and may etch your wheels. The metal filings, during braking, will become red hot and tend to ‘burn’ tiny holes in the finish of your wheels. If you have small droplets that look like road tar on your wheels, this may not be road tar, but may in fact be re-polymerized brake pad adhesive. These polymer adhesives flocculate and form droplets that wind up on the wheels where they adhere with a vengeance.
The only sure way to stop all this is to refrain from using your brakes. Such a course of action is not usually desirable, even though some driver’s are proponents. One of the keys to maintaining your wheels is a coat of wax. The wax acts as a sacrificial protectant. The damaging effects of red-hot brake dust, brake dust acids, pollution and ozone are unleashed upon the wax and not your wheels.
There are several ways to clean your wheels, choose the least aggresive method that will get the job done. A quality car wash solution is the least aggresive and will probably remove most of the dirt or brake dust from the wheel. Be careful when choosing a wheel cleaner, as most of the popular brands are highly acidic and may damage the finish on your wheels. The active ingredient in many wheel cleaners is hydrofluoric acid (the same stuff they use to etch glass).
If some areas of the wheel are still dirty, you may have to resort to a stronger solvent, to spot clean these areas. Test all solvents on a section of the wheel that does not show, to insure that the finish will not be damaged. Spray the solvent on a cloth and spot clean the dirty area. Again gentle brushing may help. Rinse thoroughly, wash with a car wash solution and dry completely.
