Six Steps to Cleaner Wheels

Stephan McKeown

What happens when you don't have the time or equipment to do a complete off-the-car wheel cleaning and just want to do the best you can by hand with the wheels still on the car?

Tech: Six Steps to Cleaner Wheels

Article by Stephan McKeown

Photography by Gary Anderson

As serious concours participants know, the best way to clean a set of wheels is to take them off the car for a thorough cleaning and waxing while detailing wheel wells, brake calipers, and exposed suspension bits at the same time. But what happens when you don't have the time or equipment and just want to do the best you can by hand with the wheels still on the car? Here are my suggestions for a six-step process.

GEAR UP: Like the title says, cleaning wheels is a dirty business requiring the right tools and products, as shown going clockwise from the bucket. Start with a dedicated bucket and several different shapes of wheel-scrubbing brushes. Don't even think about using the same bucket you shampoo your car with! The humble paint stick is our passport to inaccessible nooks and crannies. A "Fire Hose" nozzle precisely regulates water flow with a fine-grained twist, while kneepads save aches and pains. Tire dressing in the white bottle goes on easily with a sponge; cotton swabs, wooden tongue depressors, and clean cotton towels mop up. Heavy-duty latex gloves protect working hands; yellow-capped blue can is protective spray to help repel brake dust. At the center of it all is Sonax Wheel Cleaner; Sonax is a highly regarded German company with a long history of developing innovative car-care products. Not shown: electric motorcycle air dryer.

STEP 1. WET & SPRAY: First, fill your rinse bucket with water. Inset, right: Then soak wheels and tires thoroughly both inside and out. Main: Brake dust is rich in iron particles, which can sinter to wheels at the high operating temperatures of modern brake systems, becoming difficult to remove without harsh chemicals. There are safe and gentle rim-cleaning products on the market to handle this job from companies such as PS21, Menzerna, and Michelin. Today I'm using Sonax, a very effective, acid-free, pH-balanced wheel cleaner that sprays on fluorescent green. Inset, left: Make sure to spray cleaner into lug-bolt recesses, inner wheel, and on the back face of spokes. Let the Sonax go to work for a couple of minutes. I wet all four wheels, then spray a front and back pair with cleaner. Because of the smaller role they play in stopping a car and their correspondingly smaller brakes, rear wheels are usually not as dirty as fronts, so I begin in back, letting the cleaner work longer up front.

STEP 2. SCRUB & CLEAN: As it works, Sonax's unique chemical formula changes color as the iron particles in brake dust dissolve into a water-soluble iron compound, going from bright green to purple red. Main: This dirty front wheel will definitely take some scrubbing! Start by cleaning the inner wheel; this brush has medium stiff bristles wrapping completely around the head for better scrubbing, has a low profile designed to slip past most brake calipers and is long enough to reach right through the inner wheel to the back rim. I visually divide a wheel into sections based on the number of spokes and clean each area in turn. Here I'm scrubbing the flat interior wheel surface in five overlapping fan patterns. Inset, lower left: The small lug-cleaning brush easily reaches the inaccessible back face of wheel spokes and the complex details of brake calipers. Inset, upper left: The lug brush doing the job for which it was designed. Inset, lower right: To finish up, a large, soft bristle brush scrubs spokes, rim, and tire wall. Rinse brushes frequently in bucket as you work.

STEP 3. RINSE & REPEAT: A powerful jet of water rinses away dissolved brake dust and road grime. Inset, lower right: Dialing down the volume so I don't completely soak myself, I rinse each interior wheel section in the same fan pattern used earlier (see Step 2, above). Inset, lower left: Do a first inspection. Often rubbery grime or petrochemical gunk can be found still clinging in tenacious lumps to spokes and inner wheel. To avoid scratching alloys, I use the flattened end of a wooden tongue depressor to gently scrape away these ugly road pimples. Inset, upper left: Inevitably, grime still lingers in recesses and on hard-to-see surfaces. Using the valve stem as a marker, roll the car forward or back just enough that wheels rotate through 180 degrees (compare the valve stem visible in Step 1 or 2 with its position here, as indicated by the red arrow). Apply cleaner to trouble spots uncovered by the wheel's rotation, then scrub clean and rinse.

STEP 4. DRY & BUFF: Use soft cotton or microfiber towels for drying. I first blast wheels with my motorcycle dryer, which is unrivaled at chasing water out of lug recesses, brake calipers, and other hard to reach spots; a leaf blower also works well. Insets, top and bottom: After blow-drying, the wheel is still slightly damp. Take advantage of this condition to do a final buff and hand-dry over the entire wheel, teasing final traces of moist grime out of hiding. Wrapping a soft cloth around a wooden paint stick creates a thin, flexible drying tool that can go where big hands can't. Also, now is a good time to drive the car back and forth a few times while gently applying the brakes to dry the pads and prevent rust from forming on the rotors.

STEP 5. PROTECT & SHINE: With the wheels clean and dry, it's time to protect those spotless surfaces. There are several excellent wheel waxes, sprays, and coatings on the market; try a few to see what works best for you. Look for a product that will keep dust from clinging to metal, making the wheel look better longer and easing the cleaning process next time. I prefer to use waxes or liquids if the wheels are off the car. Sprays such as Sonax Wheel Rim Coating are a very convenient way to work if wheels are bolted in place, as here; I've gotten good results with Michelin Brake Dust Repellent. Spray evenly on wheel inside and out, and buff to low luster with soft cotton or microfiber cloth. Insets, bottom and top: Cloth-wrapped paint stick shines up interior recesses; cotton swab details lug recesses and alignment clamp holes.

STEP 6. TIRES & GLORY: Nothing looks worse than the glossy silicone-based tire dressing found at your local hardware store. This kind of product not only cheapens the appearance of a high-quality automobile, the silicone is actually bad for tires, breaking down rubber compounds. Inset, lower right: There are many excellent tire dressings available from Sonax and other companies that will both protect rubber and produce an attractive, soft luster; here I'm using Adam's V.R.T. Insets, upper and lower left: A soft sponge makes neat and even application a snap. Don't forget to squeeze sponge down onto the bottom edge of the tire wall compressed at pavement level. Main: Love's labor, at last: softly gleaming wheels and low-luster tires attest to an attention to detail and pride of ownership worthy of your Mercedes-Benz.

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Stephan McKeown

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