swanicyouth
New member
- Mar 3, 2011
- 9,388
- 0
So, most of us maintain (clean) our wheels on a regular basis. A lot of us have also done things like install low dust brake pads and have coated our wheels. With these practices, frequent use of more potent cleaners like Iron X (and similar) or Wheel Bright (and other strong acids/bases) is unnecessary.
So, for routine cleaning we are often using some type of surfactant style wheel cleaner. My go to "surfactant wheel cleaner" was CG's Sticky Wheel Cleaner, until I recently found out it had sodium metasillicate and sodium hydroxide in it - make it a basic wheel cleaner. What pH it is when diluted correctly (1:5) or how much of these ingredients is in this cleaner is unknown buy me.
I'm not afraid of the chemicals per se causing damage, I just think in my case I don't need to use them. As, my wheels are coated and I have low dust pads. So, I've played around with using car wash soaps as wheel cleaners before - but none of them really impressed me.
Until I tried Chemical Guys Citrus Red as a wheel cleaner.
The way I'm using it is at about 1:32 in a spray bottle with a foaming sprayer, like you would any other regular wheel cleaner. This means, for $32.99 one could make 128 thirty two oz bottles of surfactant wheel cleaner. Yes, 128 bottles. Not including water, that comes out to about 26¢ for a 32oz bottle of wheel cleaner.
So, it's cheap... But how does it work? It works awesome. In fact, I really can't notice any difference between using this mixture and CG's Sticky Wheel Cleaner at 1:5. It also works good at cleaning all the things you would use an APC for outside the car, like mud flaps, running boards, etc... I didn't do this to save money, but to try to come up with a possibly gentler way to clean my wheels.
CG's doesn't post their MSDSs. Last time I tried to get one from them, it was a huge hassle. They wanted to see my receipt for the product I bought (from AG), which I had long threw in the garbage. So, I'm guessing (but don't know for sure), that the Citrus Red Shampoo doesn't have these basic chemicals in it.
Give it a try.
What do you all think?
So, for routine cleaning we are often using some type of surfactant style wheel cleaner. My go to "surfactant wheel cleaner" was CG's Sticky Wheel Cleaner, until I recently found out it had sodium metasillicate and sodium hydroxide in it - make it a basic wheel cleaner. What pH it is when diluted correctly (1:5) or how much of these ingredients is in this cleaner is unknown buy me.
I'm not afraid of the chemicals per se causing damage, I just think in my case I don't need to use them. As, my wheels are coated and I have low dust pads. So, I've played around with using car wash soaps as wheel cleaners before - but none of them really impressed me.
Until I tried Chemical Guys Citrus Red as a wheel cleaner.
The way I'm using it is at about 1:32 in a spray bottle with a foaming sprayer, like you would any other regular wheel cleaner. This means, for $32.99 one could make 128 thirty two oz bottles of surfactant wheel cleaner. Yes, 128 bottles. Not including water, that comes out to about 26¢ for a 32oz bottle of wheel cleaner.
So, it's cheap... But how does it work? It works awesome. In fact, I really can't notice any difference between using this mixture and CG's Sticky Wheel Cleaner at 1:5. It also works good at cleaning all the things you would use an APC for outside the car, like mud flaps, running boards, etc... I didn't do this to save money, but to try to come up with a possibly gentler way to clean my wheels.
CG's doesn't post their MSDSs. Last time I tried to get one from them, it was a huge hassle. They wanted to see my receipt for the product I bought (from AG), which I had long threw in the garbage. So, I'm guessing (but don't know for sure), that the Citrus Red Shampoo doesn't have these basic chemicals in it.
Give it a try.
What do you all think?
