Cleaning Ceramic Coated Wheels

STI4Life06

STI4Life06

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Hi Guys,

I have a customer who had his whole car including wheels ceramic coated with GTechniq. Im familiar with cleaning ceramic coated paint but never wheels. I normally use Megs Wheel Brightener diluted 4:1. Would this be safe on ceramic coating? I also have IronX that I could use if needed but want to avoid the expensive stuff unless necessary.
 
Should be able to use nothing but soap and water. Wheel coatings are great!
 
As Hammer said car soap will do. I mix 2oz of Wolfgang Autobathe in 32 oz of water to make my cleaner. It's probably too concentrated but I'm over cautious. Plus one mixed bottle lasts me about 3 wheel cleanings. If your using a pressure washer most crud will rinse off. My wheels have Uber coating for what it's worth.


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Hammer77 said:
Should be able to use nothing but soap and water.
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In theory, but I recently detailed a set of opticoated wheels that were very stubborn. I spent about 35-40 minutes on the first wheel with a diluted APC, but resorted to a wheel cleaner for the other three.
 
I have Optimum Gloss Coat on one vehicle and Opti-Coat Pro on the wife's car. Both clean easily, both face and barrel with whatever car soap I'm using. I save the Meg's Wheel Brightener (which works great) on friend's uncoated nasty wheels.
 
Couple of variables that may impact your choice of wheel cleaner:

Type of brake pads, how often/with what the wheels are cleaned, remaining strength of the coating, and the type of wheel surface (black soft paint vs. hard cleared silver).

You might not get to decide which cleaner until you see the condition of the wheels.

If you're on AGO you probably already have more wheel cleaners than you need:)
 
gspam1 said:
I have Optimum Gloss Coat on one vehicle and Opti-Coat Pro on the wife's car. Both clean easily, both face and barrel with whatever car soap I'm using. I save the Meg's Wheel Brightener (which works great) on friend's uncoated nasty wheels.
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My wheel brightener is relegated to nasty friend's wheel duty too:)
 
CarPro Reset is what I use.


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The ones we use @ pottery class aren't motorized or anything, you spin them with your hand - kind of like little "lazy susans" and they have markings on them to kind of center a round project if need be. Ours are just clear plastic covered plywood 8" squares. (Plastic covered so they're easy to wipe off and clean.) We mostly use them when glazing. We put a little dot on the wheel where we started and then spin 'em as we glaze to make sure we get 3 coats on everywhere.

Hope this helps.
 
To the OP and Big Ern, sounds like you had some clients that bought a coating, but neglected it. I only use wheel cleaner on my wheels once a year, when I am getting ready to recoat. I use PBL Wheel, very nice stuff. But I clean my wheels often. I am ashamed to admit it lately I've only been cleaning my wheels every two weeks, on the off week I wipe them down with Ech2o, and they look mint.
 
watai0102 said:
The ones we use @ pottery class aren't motorized or anything, you spin them with your hand - kind of like little "lazy susans" and they have markings on them to kind of center a round project if need be. Ours are just clear plastic covered plywood 8" squares. (Plastic covered so they're easy to wipe off and clean.) We mostly use them when glazing. We put a little dot on the wheel where we started and then spin 'em as we glaze to make sure we get 3 coats on everywhere.

Hope this helps.
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Think your on the wrong forum
 
Yeah so this guy bought a wheel coating (no idea what brand) for his Audi S3 and never cleaned the wheels for a year. I tried just soap and water with pressure washer and just couldn't get the wheels to where I wanted them. It also seemed the coating was already gone since the water was not sheeting like it would with a glass coating. I ended up just using Megs Wheel Brightener which always does the trick.

I'm assuming since Megs is an acid based cleaner that it would strip the coating correct?
 
STI4Life06 said:
Yeah so this guy bought a wheel coating (no idea what brand) for his Audi S3 and never cleaned the wheels for a year. I tried just soap and water with pressure washer and just couldn't get the wheels to where I wanted them. It also seemed the coating was already gone since the water was not sheeting like it would with a glass coating. I ended up just using Megs Wheel Brightener which always does the trick.

I'm assuming since Megs is an acid based cleaner that it would strip the coating correct?
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If the customer hasn't cleaned their wheels in over a year then any beneficial properties you might notice from a ceramic coating such as beading, slickness, and ease of dirt release have been ruined due to severe neglect. I'd just treat them as "normal" un-coated wheels at this point. They'll probably still clean up a little bit easier than if they were never coated but I wouldn't worry about harming what, if any, ceramic coating is still left underneath the layer of filth.
 
Good comment above about what kind of pads and level of dusting. I have coated wheels on my last two cars, both German, which dusted like crazy. Just soap and water took some effort but worked only OK. I use CG Diablo which is a milder soap based wheel cleaner. I think Megs wheel brightener would significantly reduce the lifespan of a wheeel coating, but that's admitted speculation, I never tried it. Diablo was sufficient even on BMW when I had factory pads.
 
I know for sure CarPro DLUX has a very strong resistance to acid based cleaners. Haven't tried many other ceramic coatings on rims other than the CarPro coating line but I'll bet many others are similar. It's the alkaline degreasers that seem to kill the hydrophobic properties the most IME. Also, if you agitate the wheels with a brush it will wear away any protection significantly faster than gently cleaning with a soft cloth or mitt.
 
Nicholas@Autowerx said:
If the customer hasn't cleaned their wheels in over a year then any beneficial properties you might notice from a ceramic coating such as beading, slickness, and ease of dirt release have been ruined due to severe neglect. I'd just treat them as "normal" un-coated wheels at this point. They'll probably still clean up a little bit easier than if they were never coated but I wouldn't worry about harming what, if any, ceramic coating is still left underneath the layer of filth.
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Do you think it makes sense to reapply a coating without polishing as long as the (formerly) coated wheels are visually clean? I know that's not ideal, but it would easily save 3+ hours of tedious wheel polishing and provide some additional protection.
 
If your planning to re-coat, be sure to IPA before coating. In the case of the OP, I won't bother.
 
Ernie Mccracken said:
Do you think it makes sense to reapply a coating without polishing as long as the (formerly) coated wheels are visually clean? I know that's not ideal, but it would easily save 3+ hours of tedious wheel polishing and provide some additional protection.
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For maintenance, after cleaning, I'll usually hit the rims with Hydro2 and/or Reload to top up the hydrophobic layer of the surface. I'd only re-coat after fully prepping the surface.
 
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