— Wheels
How to clean
alloy wheels.
Choose a cleaner for the wheel's finish, work on cold surfaces and follow the stated dilution and dwell. This guide covers the face, spokes and barrel, either within a full car wash or as a separate job.
01 Summary
The short version
Six lines. One wheel at a time, and the same six every time.
- Check the finish, start on cold wheels out of the sun, and rinse the loose grit off.
- Spray RIMZ over the whole wheel and give it a minute or two.
- Agitate with a soft brush: face, spokes, barrel and the lug recesses.
- Do the arch liner and the tyre wall while the wheel is still soaking.
- Rinse the face, the barrel and the arch until the water runs clear.
- Seal the wheels with SKIN or ARMOUR while they are still wet, then rinse.
02 Setting up
Before you start
Let the wheels and the brakes cool, and work out of direct sun. How long that takes depends on the drive you have just done. A cleaner that dries on a wheel is the thing that marks them, so never stretch a dwell to finish something else.
One wheel at a time, spray through to rinse. Check what the wheel maker says before you choose a cleaner, and try it somewhere out of sight first: painted and lacquered alloys are the easy case, and bare polished, anodised or refinished wheels are not.
Whatever touches a wheel never touches paint again. Wheel grit is sharp, and a brush that has been round a barrel will put every bit of it into a door.
03 The clean
Six steps, one wheel at a time
Every ratio and dwell time below is read straight from the bottle it belongs to, so it says the same thing here as it does on the label and in the dilution guide.
Before you touch them
-
01
Cold wheels, and a rinse first
Check what the wheel maker says before you pick a cleaner. Painted and lacquered alloys are the straightforward case; bare polished, anodised, refinished or already damaged wheels can want something different, so test any cleaner on a spot you cannot see before you commit to all four.
A wheel that has just been driven on is hot, and the disc behind it is hotter. Anything sprayed onto it flashes off rather than working, and a cleaner that dries on a wheel is the one thing that actually marks them. Let them cool, keep them out of direct sun, and rinse the wheel and the arch before anything else goes on. It costs twenty seconds and takes off the loose grit that would otherwise be dragged around the face by a brush.
The clean
-
02
RIMZ on, generously
RIMZ Powerful Wheel Cleaner
Cover the face, the spokes and as far into the barrel as you can reach. Being mean with it is the usual mistake: the product has to stay wet on the brake dust for the whole dwell, and a thin coat is dry in thirty seconds.
It is alkaline rather than acid, which is what makes it safe to leave on a painted or lacquered wheel for the minute or two on the bottle. It is still a strong cleaner, so do not let it dry, and do one wheel at a time rather than spraying all four and coming back.
- Dilution, sprayer (1L)
- Neat — 1:10
- Dwell
- 1–2 minutes
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03
Round the spokes and into the barrel
The face is the part everybody does and the barrel is the part that makes a wheel look properly clean. A long soft brush gets behind the spokes; a small detailing brush gets the lug recesses and the valve, which are the two places brake dust sits and sets.
Whatever you use on a wheel never touches paint again. Wheel dirt is sharp, and a mitt that has been round a barrel will put every bit of it into a door.
-
04
The arch and the tyre while it soaks
The wheel is sitting there working, so use the time. The arch liner holds more of the road than the wheel does, and it is the thing that drips brown down a clean wheel twenty minutes later.
Give the tyre wall a scrub at the same time, with a brush kept for tyres. Old dressing and road film come off far more easily wet than they do once everything has dried. Keep an eye on the wheel while you do it — the dwell is running whether you are watching or not, and it needs rinsing before it dries.
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05
Rinse it all out
Get right into the barrel and the back of the spokes, not just the face. Anything left in there runs out onto a wheel you have just finished the first time you brake. Rinse the arch out as well, and do it before the wheel dries rather than after. If the car or the wheels come with a limit on pressure washing, that applies here.
Have a proper look once it is rinsed. If something is still there, work out what it is — tar, iron, a mark in the lacquer — and treat that. Going round again with more cleaner and a longer dwell is how a wheel gets damaged, not how it gets clean.
Sealing
-
06
Seal them while they are wet
SKIN Hybrid Wax Spray Sealant or ARMOUR Ceramic Spray Sealant
Both of these name wheels in their own directions, and both go onto a wet surface and come back off with the jet wash. SKIN over the whole wheel is the quick option. ARMOUR is the one to use if you want it to last, sprayed on, wiped round with a clean mitt, and rinsed. On an unusual finish, the same test spot you used for the cleaner applies.
A sealed wheel is the entire point of doing this properly. Brake dust struggles to key to it, so the next clean is a rinse and a wipe rather than another round with a brush.
- SKIN foam lance (1l)
- 100ml - 200ml in 1L
- SKIN dwell
- 60 seconds
- ARMOUR dwell
- 30–60 seconds
- ARMOUR durability
- Up to 6 months
04 Finishes
What your wheels are made of
The finish matters as much as the wheel underneath it. Painted and lacquered, bare polished, anodised and refinished wheels may require different care.
RIMZ is alkaline rather than acid, which is what makes it safe to leave on a painted or lacquered wheel for the one to two minutes on the bottle. It is still a strong cleaner: keep to the dilution, and rinse before it dries.
Lacquer that is lifting, a wheel that has been refinished, bare metal, or anything you cannot identify — ask the wheel maker or the refinisher what it takes before you put a strong cleaner near it.
05 Pitfalls
Where it usually goes wrong
- Hot wheels. The cleaner flashes off before it has done anything, and drying on hot metal is what actually leaves a mark.
- Spraying all four and going back to the first. By then it has dried, which is the one instruction on the bottle.
- Applying too little to keep the treated area wet for the stated dwell.
- Cleaning the face and ignoring the barrel. It looks finished until the first time you brake and it all runs back out.
- Using the wheel mitt on paint afterwards. Wheel grit is sharp, and this is where a great many swirl marks actually come from.
- Reaching for a stronger cleaner when what is left is tar, iron or a mark in the lacquer. Work out what it is first.
06 The bottles
What this page uses
Three bottles, and two of them are doing another job elsewhere on the car anyway. Everything is sold on its own, from a 100ml Wash Shot to a 5 litre can.
Doing the whole car rather than just the wheels? The kits put the range together in the order it is used, and the full wash runs through all eleven stages.