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Does brake dust lead to corrosion of alloy wheels? My car doesn't get washed very often these days, and when it does it's at a "hand car wash" place.
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I would expect them to use harsh chemicals to clean the wheels. Long term the chemicals will probably cause as much, if not more damage to the wheels.
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I thought it was a combination of the brake dust and ferrous metal particles from the disc. The metal particles rust, causing damage to the lacquer AFAIK.
I'm sure Stu will be along and put us right.
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Funnily enough I was going to ask about this today. My C5 goes in for its first service and I was thinking of grumbling about the staining on my front alloys. At 11mths old they are as bad as the ones on my Mondeo at 8yrs old. I was wary of using these harsh chemical cleaners.
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I agree about the mixture of the brake dust and ferrous particles. I also remember people who use rail station car parks having the paintwork on cars affected by the brake dust/ferrous particles from trains.
As an aside, on all my previous cars, the front wheels have always had more brake dust deposited on them than the rears (presumably due to there being brake bias towards the front). On my current Auris, the rears have more brake dust deposited on them than the fronts.
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Under hard braking, steel dust gets HOT. Lands on wheel, pits lacquer.. by melting a little bit. Repeat hundreds of times a year...
I wash the insides of my alloy wheels through the holes- by sponge.. But only when it's over 7C. Below that, it's white finger stuff.
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Modern alloys don't seem as robust as older ones, across all the common marques there's complaints in their owners forums. Must be an environmentally friendly laquer or something.
I keep mine spotless, but with shampoo not wheel cleaner acids or anything like that. There's one wee micro bubble, possibly a manufacturing / painting defect, possibly some reaction. Hopefully the former because i doubt there are many better cared for wheels knocking about on daily drivers...
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We had a 406 years back at work that the driver of never cleaned properly. When we came to sell it the alloys were heavily caked in ferous deposits (which I assumed was a build up from brake dust). It took many applications of Wonder Wheels - which normally works quickly - but eventually it came off and the wheels scrubbed up as well as can be expected for what must have been a 6 year old car by then.
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>> I keep mine spotless, but with shampoo not wheel cleaner acids or anything like that.
>>
Me too, about once a week if I am washing the car or not. The answer is easy if you want to protect your alloys, it takes about ten minutes a week.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 5 Nov 10 at 12:45
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I agree with Skoda about quality.
I recently put new pads in the Vitara. The front wheels had been filthy for months so I took the chance to clean them while they were off.
I did'em with WD40 and a cloth and they look as good as new, even after 15 yrs.
The wheels on my bike are pitted after only a few years......and hard to clean.
Ted
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Well I have some cars that I have cleaned for 8 years straight and they dont have corroding wheels BUT because I know they are long term projects, I am careful about how I clean them.
That means where at all possible, not using acids at all and just a prewash and car shampoo. On a car that does a reasonable mileage, maybe once a year a very quick brush over with acid in the corners to get ride of any burnt on deposits and yellow staining, both of which happen with some cars and acid is the only effective way to remove this.
Im afraid some of those quick wash places do use acid indiscriminately and the long term result is fading of the wheel surface and often corrosion. It is true also that wheels left dirty for long periods of time can corrode but this is not set in stone.
What is however, is that if you leave it too long, you wont be able to remove the brakedust at all without causing damage with the effort involved.
EBC do some great pads which really dont seem to give off any brakedust - ive seen the long term results and they are impressive, but whether they are good for braking I dont know.
Regarding corrosion, some alloys are prone to it. I dont know quite why, but it does seem common on Japanese cars and also BMWs, especially complex cross-spoke designs.
Those split rim jobbies always go fairly quickly and ive seen that on a lot of prestige makes such as Audi and Jaguar.
That said, Lexus seem to have cracked the issue with current models and Jaguar also on more recent stuff dont seem to suffer.
It tends to start flaking off from sharp eges on the inside of the alloys and I can only think it is afault in the painting process. I cleaned a BMW 330 Ci the other day with very clomplex wheels, must have been 40-50 spokes and they were already starting to go.
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There were some jibes on another thread concerning OCD...
};---)
Mine get sponged with the same shampoo solution I use on the rest of the car, once a month if they're lucky. No problems after eight years, but the wheels have been swapped front to back at tyre changes, and I did make my first set of brake pads last 108,000 miles. Could the answer be to generate less brake dust in the first place?
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According to a guy I was speaking with in the trade he said that most of the wheels (specifically US Ford) are made in a Chinese factory to a price and they are not at at all to the same quality as the US made wheels of a few years ago. Chrome wheels are particularly bad from China as they do not basecoat them in a suitable material (they should be using copper - I seem to recall) so the plate will not last more than a few years.
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My ten year old BMW alloy wheels are as good as the day they came out of factory ,Ford seem to last about about 18 months before they start to look tatty.
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There's probably an element of some makers specifying whatever they can get away with to tick the box. I've mentioned before that our Verso matches the Volvo tick for tick (apart from the heated seats), but that nothing in it - from the climate control to the headlamp switch works as well, or feels as thoughtfully designed, as its Volvo counterpart.
Too soon to say how its wheels will last, though.
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>>Ford seem to last about about 18 months before they start to look tatty.
>>
My 98 Mondeo wheels do not look too bad. They get a quick wash from a bucket of suds when I think the fronts are getting a bit black. I also use Polycell Brush Cleaner to get off any tar or crud.
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I agree I meant newish Ford I have a friend with a old mondeo and the alloys are in extremely could condition.I think there has been a lot of cost cutting in this dept by all manufacturers.
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Same as Skoda and Navy, i clean them weekly then the dirt doesn't get ingrained.
Possibly more importantly salt doesn't do it's thing too badly either.
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My tip....
....use car wax/polish.
it protects cars bodies, so does exactly the same for the wheels.
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>> ............ Ford seem to last about about 18 months before they start to
>> look tatty.
>>
My 7 year old Focus wheels are still in pristine condition.
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Is anyone having any success at all with the various wheel protector chemicals?
I tried normal megs wax for the body work and couldn't detect any difference other than the finish of the wheels was slightly brighter for a couple of days.
I tried Halfords own brand spray on, it's a petroleum spirit based protector rather than a wax. This does stop tar spots and it seems to make the brake dust bond evenly across the surface -- the effect is that the wheel looks less bright, rather than dirty. Doesn't make them any faster to clean and doesn't make any less dust stick.
I've been trying a really heavyweight / strong insulator wax, collinite 845, but no real difference.
Wondering if there's anything that stops dust bonding in the first place.
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T-cut and elbow grease cuts through it.
Better still wash your car once a week stop been lazy.
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Skoda,
My standards of car cleanliness are nowhere near as high as yours, but I did try Mr Sheen on just cleaned wheels in a bid to stop the dust sticking.
Don't think it made any difference at all.
My target wheel cleaning regime is 'little and often', although I often fail to reach either parameter. :)
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If your that fussed about brake dust, you will be out there cleaning it off before it gets bad enough to need any kind of protective layer.
If you dont care, dont hide behind some mystical solution. If your just lazy, get your wallet out and support eastern europe ;-)
Im 1/4 East German, so I really am the genuine article :-)
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Lol :-) if you were nearer stu I'd ask if you'd do alternate washes. The wheels are a bit intricate for the local polish wash, and as above I'm not convinced of the medium term effects of their indiscriminate use of acids on modern laquer.
Cheers for that iffy, another candidate eliminated from the search! I'm going to give a strong sealant a try next. Due a wheel rotation about now, so will treat them to a polish beforehand too.
It's efficiency I'm after something for. I do my wheels at least weekly without fail, but often twice a week. It's 40 mins a time, I can thoroughly wash and dry the rest of the car in nearly half that :-(
Because it's an open wheel design, have to keep the insides spotless too, then there's the bright red calipers needing kept bright, the spokes are pretty intricate too...
Ho hum.
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Along with frequent cleaning I use Simoniz solid wax polish on my wheels every three months ish. Fortunately I have an open five spoke wheel design which is easy to clean
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...Because it's an open wheel design, have to keep the insides spotless too, then there's the bright red calipers needing kept bright, the spokes are pretty intricate too...
Nothing sets the car off better than clean and polished wheels - apart from spotlessly clean windows.
The old motor trade saying 'windows and wheels' is right.
If they both look well, the rest of the car will, too.
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>>Nothing sets the car off better >>
Lights and number plates.
Take a dirty car and clean the lights and number plates and it immediately looks more cared for.
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C5 is in today for 1st service so decided to wash it and give the brake dust stains on the front alloys an extra look. Didn't want to use T-cut so tried rubbing hard with a normal polish... no good. Hunted around the kitchen and settled on cooker hob cleaner.
Perfect... took the stains away with no effort so hopefully the dealer will think I look after the car all the time and treat it well.
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>> Hunted around the kitchen and
>> settled on cooker hob cleaner.
>>
>>
T-cut in a different (more expensive) bottle?
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 8 Nov 10 at 14:10
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>>>T-cut in a different (more expensive) bottle?
Ahh better than that.... it more disolved the staining rather than having to rub loads with T-cut... must be the kind to hob tops citric acid formula??
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>> so hopefully the dealer will think I
>> look after the car all the time and treat it well.
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You must be joking. Its just another job to be done as quickly and cheaply as possible.
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...so hopefully the dealer will think I look after the car all the time and treat it well...
Well worth cleaning the car before it goes in for a service.
I've worked in a non-franchised garage and a main dealer, staff in both workshops took notice of the condition of the car.
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>> staff in both workshops took notice of the condition of the car
Yeah it makes a lot of sense, it's pretty much the same courtesy that ensures your living room is clean & tidy before the Sky TV installer comes in.
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>> there's
>> the bright red calipers needing kept bright, ...
>>
All indicative of the good taste of the owner :-)
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i read this and think chalk dust
and McEnroe
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BB, You can NOT be serious!!
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Brake dust on wheels - Old Navy
