Wheel cleaner vs. APC

RippyD

RippyD

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I just got 4 very used OEM wheels for winter tires. These are 10 spoke aluminum wheels with paint and clear on the front and paint on the back of the spokes and barrels. The barrels appear to have never been cleaned. Seemed like a good chance to do a quick test with what I had on hand: Griots Heavy Duty wheel cleaner, Duragloss All Wheel Cleaner, DG Orange cleaner, Opt Power Clean, and DG APC.

The short story is that APC at 1:1 cleaned off the wheel grime far better than anything else. The orange cleaner got some spots that had grease. But overall the APC was dramatically more effective at cleaning these than either wheel cleaner.

Wish I had more pics but didn't get them - was moving quickly.


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Since they are free & clear of the tire and vehicle, did you try pressure washing?
 
Did not. Tried that once on a painted Land Rover wheel and got a paint chip. That may have been a fluke, or paint that was already about to come off, but it scared the crap out of me. Likely would have been fine in the barrels.
 
I can post some after pics later today. I didn't bother because there's not a lot to see. The barrels seem to have primer on them - sort of a mint green color. The faces have silver paint with clear coat over them.

After getting the grime off the barrels and back of the spokes still look pretty bad. Some scratching, a lot of tar, and other stuff that I'll need to polish off. Next step is to de-tar them, then, clay, polish. Will post some pics along the way, but first some after wash pics later today.
 
Use a Magic Eraser w/diluted APC as lube to get rid of that tar etc. It works way better and faster than anything else, trust me.
 
Here's what they looked like after I cleaned them. Notice that blob of tar at 2:00.

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Here is what they really looked like after cleaning. I initially thought that was tar. Now not sure. Tar + road grime + pitted paint?

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Since i thought it was tar only I tried to use tar removers. See that slightly cleaner area in the middle? That's after I tried every cleaner I had (bug remover, mineral spirits, 3M adhesive remover, gasoline, APC + magic eraser, and a few others). This stuff wasn't budging. I also tried clay and a compound by hand. Neither made any visible progress.

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Decided I had nothing to lose by sanding. This is the sludge that came off. I had to sand for a while and clogged a lot of paper before I got down to the paint. Sanding with bug remover helped keep the paper working. I switched to 1000 rather than 1500 in this pic. I then followed with 2000 after I thought the grime was gone.

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Here's how it looked after I was done sanding (or so I thought). The shine you're seeing is from water.

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Notice that there's still some grime toward the middle of the barrel. So I'm not done with this one.

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Eldorado2k said:
Use a Magic Eraser w/diluted APC as lube to get rid of that tar etc. It works way better and faster than anything else, trust me.
Click to expand...
It worked ok. On these wheels nothing worked well. The 3M stuff did the best. Next to that, DG bug cleaner with a magic eraser.

These things are going take far too long to clean to the point that I can coat them. A small orbital or DA with sandpaper would be handy. I could probably get most of the barrel with my GG6. Need something else for the smaller areas.

And I'm now thinking... I could have bought repainted wheels for $40 more per wheel. Those are looking like a good deal right now... maybe need to do that and put these on CL. Maybe I polish the faces and leave the barrels as-is since they're very visible on the truck? Need to sleep on it.

EDIT: Another option is to plasti-dip these black or anthracite (dark grey). Would likely look good on the white LR3 and I've read it's fairly easy to remove.
 
Thanks for the highly detailed update. Your posts get thumbs up from me.
Wish more people would provide this sort of detailed info/conclusions.
 
RippyD said:
And I'm now thinking... I could have bought repainted wheels for $40 more per wheel. Those are looking like a good deal right now... maybe need to do that and put these on CL. Maybe I polish the faces and leave the barrels as-is since they're very visible on the truck? Need to sleep on it.

EDIT: Another option is to plasti-dip these black or anthracite (dark grey). Would likely look good on the white LR3 and I've read it's fairly easy to remove.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing everything you've tried! Like Eldorado2k said - very cool of you to document what you've tried and how it worked, especially for something less extravagant than usual write ups. One heck of a before and after though!

I had to chime in on the repainted wheels part - having seen a lot of refinished wheels, be careful- the quality of the paint/work varies wildly. It's not uncommon to see them where the clear coat or even paint flakes off or has runs/etc. While the parking lot refinish trailers seem to be the worst, I've seen poor results from the companies where they dismount the tire and do the full process as well.

Best results I've seen have been when people send them out to get powdercoated. For plasti-dip, I've heard preparation is key (not that you'd struggle with that part!) to be able to remove the stuff at a later date. Don't expect plasti-dip to survive a tire change, even with modern equipment.

Just my 2¢
 
Good tip on the plasti-dip and on repainted rims. Having a bad re-paint would be worse than what I have now. Given that, I think it's time to either order some matching rim paint or look at plasti-dip after I get tires.

And thanks to you and Eldorado for the kudos. Just trying to give give back a little. So many guys here do great write ups. I learn a little more every time I come here.
 
I almost hate to ask, but if the barrels were that bad, what did the front of the wheels look like? In all fairness, those wheels look like they'd be really hard to clean even if you had a good set of brushes.
 
Will get some pics of the front. Some scratches but largely in pretty good shape on the front. Some curb rash on the lip of the rims I'l need to grind off.

I tried one more thing: scotch brite pad + carburetor cleaner. It takes car of that tar really quickly, but is very hard on the paint. Too much scrubbing will go through paint quickly and it leaves them looking terrible - they'll need to be sanded and polished. So it's faster for sure, but can be more damaging. Carb cleaner is very volatile so the working time is short. So you have to get the sludge off quickly. And I inhaled more VOCs than I would like.
 
RippyD said:
Will get some pics of the front. Some scratches but largely in pretty good shape on the front. Some curb rash on the lip of the rims I'l need to grind off.

I tried one more thing: scotch brite pad + carburetor cleaner. It takes car of that tar really quickly, but is very hard on the paint. Too much scrubbing will go through paint quickly and it leaves them looking terrible - they'll need to be sanded and polished. So it's faster for sure, but can be more damaging. Carb cleaner is very volatile so the working time is short. So you have to get the sludge off quickly. And I inhaled more VOCs than I would like.
Click to expand...

Clean the barrels the best you can and move on. Is anyone besides you that is going to inspect the back of your wheels?:props:
 
Of course nobody else is going to see them that closely. My goal is to coat them. Can't do that with grime on them.
 
RippyD said:
Of course nobody else is going to see them that closely. My goal is to coat them. Can't do that with grime on them.
Click to expand...

In that case, use a wheel acid (Megs Wheel Brightner) to get it squeaky clean.
 
I'm sanding and polishing. I can't imagine the wheel cleaner will matter that much. We had a recent discussion about Megs Wheel Brightener on the forum. I wouldn't use it even if it were free. Potential problems from exposure are worth the risk and other cleaners are as effective. (FYI, it contains ammonium bifluoride. If might never cause an issue, but too much potential to cause harm. Certainly don't want it around my house where teenagers could decide to use barefoot and unaware of the hazards.)
 
RippyD said:
I'm sanding and polishing. I can't imagine the wheel cleaner will matter that much. We had a recent discussion about Megs Wheel Brightener on the forum. I wouldn't use it even if it were free. Potential problems from exposure are worth the risk and other cleaners are as effective. (FYI, it contains ammonium bifluoride. If might never cause an issue, but too much potential to cause harm. Certainly don't want it around my house where teenagers could decide to use barefoot and unaware of the hazards.)
Click to expand...
Been using w/b for years with no problems. Just need to use some common sense.
 
Another update: Tried a very stuff plastic brush with a strong cleaner. Opt Power Clean undiluted or orange cleaner seem to work the best. Still a lot of elbow grease but better than sanding. I am able to get 90% of the grime off. There are still dark areas and some staining. Will try a polish or compound to see if those work to clean it up. If not I'll have to sand these too.

The brush and cleaner are less effort and have much less potential to remove paint.
 
Didn't see any mention of a specific iron decon test - try IronX or anything yet? Any notion on how much of the remaining "gunk" might be embedded iron from the pads?
 
Good question, but I don't think so. I cleaned them heavily with APC and DG Wheel cleaner before using anything with iron color indicator and never saw any color change. Will try again in case there's iron below all those other layers.

It look more like staining from tar than brake dust. Hard to believe how much tar splatter the barrels had on them. Back of the spokes toward the barrels seemed to have more grease than tar as it came off easily with orange cleaner and APC.
 
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