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There's simply no substitute for mechanically cleaning with soap and water.

Agreed, no cleaner will be able to remove all brake dust and grime without agitation. I think that is a key step in fully cleaning your wheels. Otherwise, you will be left with a residue. I feel like all of these youtubers/influencers are working on rims that aren't even "that" dirty. I'd like to see an example where the brake dust is really caked and baked onto the rim and they test different products.

Moving forward, I will be using a product that is closer to neutral (or slightly basic) to clean my wheels. This way I can have peace of mind that I won't be damaging my rims again.

 

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Simple green is known to corrode unpainted aluminum. I have used Adams wheel cleaner on rims from multiple vehicles and it never caused any damage. Matter of fact, it hasn't been a good wheel cleaner at all. I have since switched to P&S Brake Buster.

But even with P&S BB you still need a lot of elbow grease to remove stubborn brake dust deposits and stains.

 

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I guess my thought is -- if your ceramic coating didn't prevent this really bad build up of dust, why bother having them coated again?

I only had the faces ceramic coated. The barrels were never coated and that's where the really heavy buildup is. But even still, in the hard to reach places of the wheel faces, it is still covered in stubborn brake dust, but not crusted layers like on the inner barrels.

 

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Just to update everyone, I tackled the wheels again tonight. I first tried spraying on a diluted ONR and wiping it down with the ONR solution. No success, it did absolutely nothing to help remove the white residue.

Next I tried spraying some of the wheel cleaner on a microfiber cloth and wiped an area where the staining was. No success with doing that either. It's like the residue was baked into the coating/clear coat.

Lastly I resorted to trying Meguairs Ultimate polish. Fortunately, this did the trick. I rubbed the polish in by hand with a microfiber applicator and used a ton of elbow grease. After wiping away the hazy polish that I just worked in, I found that the white staining was gone and the finish looked nice again. I was able to get like 90% of the staining gone. It was tough to polish the areas that are tucked away and hard to reach, but for now I am satisfied, until weather gets warmer and I have an easier time doing a deeper clean.

However, on closer inspection I saw that my first pass of cleaning the wheels (when i first used the wheel cleaner) wasn't really great because I still saw caked on brake dust at the inner lip of the barrel, brake dust in the little nooks and crannies, and in the lug nut holes. Some of the brake dust is so crusty and I can't even remove it by scratching it off with a finger nail. How do people actually remove really old, built up brake dust like this? I'd like to ceramic coat my wheels again after the polishing but I have no idea how to remove the heavy brake dust and get the wheels super clean to the point that I can apply the ceramic coating. Thoughts?

 

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You could try diluting it, but I just did a search for Adams wheel cleaner discolor and was seeing a decent amount of posts, but most of it appeared to be on aluminum finishes and tires, but yeah I personally would probably just pass on it, but you could test it in a small area diluted and see what happens.

Yeah, I would strongly recommend diluting Adams wheel cleaner first before using it. I wouldn't recommend running it through a snow foam cannon either because the wheel cleaner smells so bad that you will never get that smell out again... or maybe even the residue. Rather, use a regular dedicated spray bottle for an aggressive chemical like this.

 

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13.5 is a pretty strong alkali/base. I cant say I'd recommend using that on coated wheels; thats ironic given the discussion about it being acidic earlier.

Brake Buster is a pH of 10 for reference...

Yeah, clearly did more harm than good. I am going to try to use some polish on the wheels today to try and remove the residue. But first I will try and something like optimum no rinse with water and see if I can rub it off that way. If that isn't aggressive enough then I will move to the polisher. I probably stripped the ceramic coating off of the wheels at this point anyways because 13.5 is high than soapy water (~12.0) and people recommend using that for stripping lol

I'll report back to this thread once I have results.

 

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Thanks, I was thinking similar but didn't want to assume and risk messing up my CE BBS Forged wheels 😅 It says safe on "many" finishes and not sure how to tell if it's safe for CE specific wheels. What would you recommend instead? Here's what is in the mail that I could return before opening:

Amazon.com: Adam's Polishes Wheel & Tire Cleaner 16oz - Professional All in One Car Wash Wheel Well Cleaning Spray for Car Detailing | Safe On Most Rim Finishes : Automotive

Buy Adam's Polishes Wheel & Tire Cleaner 16oz - Professional All in One Car Wash Wheel Well Cleaning Spray for Car Detailing | Safe On Most Rim Finishes on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders

www.amazon.com

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I have a different one. It's called Adam's Wheel Cleaner, not Adam's Wheel and Tire Cleaner. ASFAIK the wheel cleaner is more aggressive and acidic than the wheel and tire cleaner, so I think you're okay with that one.

 

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Just to get a key takeaway point from this. The issue was using the adam cleaner more than anything because it was acidic on the ceramic coating? Would simply using the P&S BB alone safer for a ceramic coated wheel? Kind of just ordered a gallon of BB for my ceramic coated wheels 😅

I normally do just P&S BB but this time I wanted to use something more heavy duty to try and tackle the heavy duty brake dust caked on. But I think, as others are saying, that there are better options that are less aggressive and safer. Don't let the acid wheel cleaners dry!

 

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You can think of the higher stages of polishing compounds like increasingly finer grits that go beyond 5000 and 8000 grit sandpapers, they're still abrasive by definition, but the abrasive particle size is so small, and it removes such little material, it results in a virtually mirror finish. If you watch a YT video of someone doing paint correction or scratch repair, you will see them finish the process by going step by step with finer and finer sandpaper grits and you can see how the surface becomes smoother each step. Ultimately they finish with a polishing compound. The hazing you have is so thin on the very surface, I think Dylan is right that a polishing compound should be all you need. You can try some hand application first, just by rubbing the surface with a microfiber or a foam applicator pad. It might take some elbow grease but if it works you should see results pretty quickly.

If it works but feels like too much effort or time to do each wheel, stop by a detail shop and see if they'll polish the wheels up for you to get rid of the hazing.

Awesome, great description. I'm a visual learner so explaining it like that helps. I'll pick up some polish and see if I can't get rid of the haze. I'll report back with hopefully good results!

 

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Nothing is going to be intended for wheels afaik, but no worries as I've used all of those on body paint (and plastics) with no issue. All compound and polish will remove some surface material, but in your case it shouldn't take much to remove that hazing (that is likely just sitting in the top layer of your coating).

Awesome, thanks. I'll give it a go. Any recommendations for an applicator?

 

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I'm def not an expert either, but I've learned a lot from watching YouTube and from my brother who is far more knowledgeable. That said, for hand use I prefer compound that is a bit more gritty (unless you want to be out there for hours and hours) and oddly enough the best one I have ever used it technically a polishing product known as Peek vs a rubbing compound.

Link

If you were using a polisher, I'd recommend Griots correcting creams (iirc there are three levels). Fast Correcting Cream (the strongest) might also do the trick by hand (I'd bet not as fast as the Peek however), but I haven't tried it that way.

Link

And even though they're abrasive, they won't scratch the wheel? Is Peek safe for wheels such as these?

 

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Ahh, the Adam's is acidic? yeah, that might be where the issue occurred, although I'd think the two would more or less just cancel being acid vs base (but might have also just reacted badly with the P&S formulation wise).

If you want a safe combo, you can use Armour Wheel Detailing Wheel Cleaner (has iron remover) and follow with Brake Buster. This combo worked great on my coated stock wheels, and they were matte black which is awful to clean lol.

I think so? They have two different products, wheel cleaner and then wheel & tire cleaner. One is more aggressive than the other I believe. In any case, do you have recommendations for a polish that I can try and use. I think I'll have to get them ceramic coated again regardless which sucks, but it is what it is.

 

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I think you might be on to something with the reaction between the cleaners and the ceramic coating. Being that wheel cleaners, specifically BB, are already pretty strong (it's a pH of 10 iirc), I think you're likely looking at needing to correct that off, but you might be able to just use rubbing compound vs going to the SA/DA polisher.

You have any recommendations for a rubbing compound? I don't have a machine to do it, but it may be easier by hand because of all the grooves and stuff. I know next to nothing of polishes, compounds etc, so any pointers are helpful to try and recover my wheels.

 

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Hope you're able to sort it out. There's a lesson here for all. Over the decades I've damaged a wheel or two by using various "wheel cleaners". I finally learned that there's really no short cut -- just use soap/water and clean the wheels regularly.

Yeah lesson learned I suppose. My line of thinking was to use a wheel acid to break down and remove the brake dust but it looks like I did more harm than good 😔