Tire & Wheel Cleaner or Tire Cleaner

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poko

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Hello! When I was searching for the best way to dress tires i came across a question: How can a tire cleaner and a wheel cleaner be a single product? I see several product that say "tire and rim" cleaner while few products saying only tire (and rubber) cleaner.
Tire is rubber, wheel surfaces are aluminum, painted, clear coated, or chromed (people may not care about a steel wheel). The surface of both things are totally different. What do you think?:)
 
There are some products that are suitable only for wheels, while others will clean both wheels and tires. This isn't some magic or subterfuge, it's simply a function of the product type. Alkaline/caustic cleaners such as most APC's and some other specific wheel cleaners (Eagle One A2Z, for instance), and pH-neutral wheel cleaners are also very good at cleaning tires. These types of cleaners are more "detergent" action, while acid wheel cleaners tend not to work so well on rubber as their wheel-cleaning action is more about "dissolving" contaminants.
 
Autoglym's custom wheel cleaner works great as a wheel cleaner and on the tires as well. The foaming trigger spray foams up nicely and pulls dirt quickly off the tires.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
There are some products that are suitable only for wheels, while others will clean both wheels and tires. This isn't some magic or subterfuge, it's simply a function of the product type. Alkaline/caustic cleaners such as most APC's and some other specific wheel cleaners (Eagle One A2Z, for instance), and pH-neutral wheel cleaners are also very good at cleaning tires. These types of cleaners are more "detergent" action, while acid wheel cleaners tend not to work so well on rubber as their wheel-cleaning action is more about "dissolving" contaminants.
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:whs:

Very well put: that's it!
Acidic: wheels - despite its effectfulness some products are waaay too dangerous for me to want to use them (Meguiar's Wheel Brightener is one - pH is 3)
Neutral and Alkaline - wheels and / or tires.
 
RMM said:
Acidic: wheels - despite its effectfulness some products are waaay too dangerous for me to want to use them (Meguiar's Wheel Brightener is one - pH is 3)
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It's not really the pH aspect of WB that is the problem (I'm sure other acid wheel cleaners are similar or even lower), it's the specific chemical, which requires specific neutralization products, which probably 99% of users don't have (there are many other wheel cleaners besides Meg WB that use HF/ABF and therefore have similar safety issues). They work great but for me the tradeoff is not there and I use acid wheel cleaners that don't use HF/ABF as the acid.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
It's not really the pH aspect of WB that is the problem (I'm sure other acid wheel cleaners are similar or even lower), it's the specific chemical, which requires specific neutralization products, which probably 99% of users don't have (there are many other wheel cleaners besides Meg WB that use HF/ABF and therefore have similar safety issues). They work great but for me the tradeoff is not there and I use acid wheel cleaners that don't use HF/ABF as the acid.
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:xyxthumbs:

I agree - I only stated the pH as opposed to the pH of something like Sonax FE (7).
 
How about megs APC+, i know its not a dedicated tire and wheel cleaner. but is it safe to be used for this purpose?
 
Kitoy22 said:
How about megs APC+, i know its not a dedicated tire and wheel cleaner. but is it safe to be used for this purpose?
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-APC+ has a pH value of 13.2...seemingly, then, a highly alkyline = "strong cleaner"...more than likely a good tire cleaner...may not be good for certain wheel-types, though...But, how you going to keep it off all the wheel surfaces while performing tire-cleaning?

-As has been mentioned/questioned before: Will, or does, this particular ph value tell the whole story? Probably not.

I know the following doesn't begin to scratch the surface...

-Acid-Base titrations (strong acids/bases; weak acids/strong bases; weak acids/bases), buffers/buffering, salt and water formation through acid/base neutralization reaction processes---and, conversely, hydrolysis: salt reacting with water to form acids/bases...may be, or are, additions to the overall ph story-line.

-The APC+ product description states it is completely water soluble, and can be diluted to the point of being a "safe" leather cleaner. Is this in fact true?

Here's a partial listing of it's MSDS:

1.a) Ethylene Glycol Monopropyl Ether
b) Sodium Metasilicate

2.a) Linear Primary Alcohol Ethoxylate
b) EDTA

When these two bases and two acids are: 'in solution'...Is this 'solution' then considered to be: Buffered; titrated through acid conjugation to the point of neutralization (ph7), or, beyond (13.2)?

-Not saying it's not ...But, if possible...What %, by volume, of water-dilution will it take to 'lower' this particular product's ph level to be "leather-safe"?

The Chemists/formulators really do know the products...It's usually up to the end-users to do the research to satisfy any curiosity they may have.
That, or trust in products' manufacturers, chemicals suppliers, the products' label-instructions, or members of detailing-forums, such as AGO's.

:)

Bob
 
Another vote for Mothers. Awesome shiz right there!
 
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