Is wheel wax/protection really worth it?

Setec Astronomy said:
I have an American car that would like to compete with the German cars. Granted, it has the best brakes of any car I've ever had, however, the wheels quickly turn black with dust. Sometimes I wonder if black brake dust is the price for good braking, or whether the mfr. simply thought that customers expected the brake dust to be terrible, so they use pads that meet the customer's expectations.

When the factory pads are up, I'm going to sort of do as Swanicyouth did, repaint the wheels and install Akebono Pro-Acts; it will be interesting to see what the difference is performance and appearance-wise.

As to the OP's question, I also think dedicated wheel waxes/sealants are a marketing gimmick, although I did win a jar of Poorboy's Wheel Sealant some years ago, and it worked well, so it's not like they are bad products.
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I'm currently running Hawk HPS pads on my '04 Mach 1. They have better performance than the stock pads and generate more dust. I knew that going in. My favorite driving road takes me to almost 11,000 feet and there are several one thousand foot plus drop offs with no barriers on the way up and the way down. I also use Ate Typ 200 /Super Blue DOT 4 fluid.

My choice is cleaning wheels more often and avoiding cliff driving.

Street cars need brakes that perform well COLD. As in cruising on the freeway for an hour, then panic stopping. Race car brake pads don't work at all until they are up to temperature and racing keeps them at operating temperature.

The Hawk HPS pads are high performance street pads. They work cold, but are optimized to work better than average when warmed up - like flying around a mountain road at 11,000 ft. without flying off.

High performance brakes really are not about decreasing stopping distances in normal street driving. If you stomp on your brakes and can lock up you wheel and tires, your braking distance is determined by your tires. Swapping out to six piston Brembos with 14" rotors isn't really going to cut down your stopping distances from 35MPH or even that cold brake panic stop from 70MPH.

High performance brakes work better when things get hot and stay hot. Repeated use on twisty mountain roads or on a race track.

OEM brakes are designed with the average buyer and warranty claims in mind. Ford doesn't want high performance pads chewing through rotors in 10,000 miles and BMW doesn't want M series owners complaining of squeaky/noisy brakes. OEM pads often dust heavily as a by product of low rotor wear and silent operation. High performance pads dust heavily because their optimized on the other end of the scale and they get better bite by chewing up rotors and can make more noise.

The stock shifter on my '04 Mach 1 felt vague because most buyers wouldn't put up with the increased noise, vibration, harshness and heat generated by a shifter without rubber insulators between the stick and transmission. I chose an aftermarket shifter because I wanted better feel over better insulation.

I just happen to believe it's a waste to pay more for high performance brakes and never drive fast enough to really use them and I think it's pretty silly to buy a Lamborghini and never break the speed limit.

I'm pretty anal, but I refuse to neuter my car just to get less brake dust on the wheels.
 
back on topic, i believe it is worth it to use a good sealant (not neccessarily a product marketed as a wheel sealant or wax) on wheels, then maintain them with shampoo.
 
^^^ agreed:xyxthumbs:


I think when I can get some time I am going to test out hydro2 and techniq wheel armor... Any others you would like in the test? If you want to send me some samples of other products I will be more then happy to add them.
 
DP Wheel Glaze is probably my most disappointing purchase. I remember buying it because I needed something to get me over the $125.00 free shipping mark on one of my many shopping sprees. I had always used whatever LSP I used on the paint on the wheels but I figured I'd try a wheel specific product. I found it harder to work on and the durability was poor. I've been using Collinite 845 ever since.
 
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