UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hi all,

It's been a few weeks since I last cleaned my car due to poor weather and time constraints but yesterday I finally spent a good 2.5hrs on it. Inside and out.

I have noticed that there's some black specs stuck to the paint of the wheels which do come off with some elbow grease but there's too many for me to scrub each one.

What products do you guys use to remove these marks?

I use Auto Glym Custom Wheel Cleaner which cleans them up a treat, but not the baked on stuff!

I have the exact same problem with mine it's all over them just baked into the rim

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Best product I've come across is CarPro Iron-X. The stuborn black residue that sticks on your wheels is actually tiny particles of metal from the brake disks. This stuff shifts it in minutes. As it removes it, it runs bright purple so it's wasy to see it doing it's stuff. Only drawback is you shouldn't use it in direct sunlight and it stinks to high heaven. You can also use it on paint to decontaminate it prior to polishing, good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrechBwxLcU
https://carpro.uk.com/products/iron-x-500ml

AutoBrite also do a product called PurpleRain which is almost identical. Likewise ValePro do something called dragons breath.

Bear in mind these safe to use iron fall-out removal products that are very good at removing iron contamination are likely to either remove or reduce the effectiveness of any wax or sealant protection you may have on your wheels.

I'd recommend re-waxing or re-sealing your wheels after you've decontaminated and cleaned them.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check those out.

I think that your plan needs to be to clean these wheels a bit more often, I'm not "brilliant" at keeping up with cleaning, but I only seem to need to use brake dust cleaner once a year on wheels.

I tend to clean the wheels just by using "normal" wash stuff, and if there is any black stops, I use brake cleaner stuff as, as you have discovered, that is the only thing that will shift these spots without doing a lot of damage.

Unique, but nasty smell most of these brake cleaning preparations have!

RUM4MO wrote:I think that your plan needs to be to clean these wheels a bit more often, I'm not "brilliant" at keeping up with cleaning, but I only seem to need to use brake dust cleaner once a year on wheels.

I tend to clean the wheels just by using "normal" wash stuff, and if there is any black stops, I use brake cleaner stuff as, as you have discovered, that is the only thing that will shift these spots without doing a lot of damage.

Unique, but nasty smell most of these brake cleaning preparations have!

I clean the car every 1-2 weeks in warmer weather but with the recent rain and cold, I've not been in the mood to do it.
I've had the car almost 12 months and it's the first time I've noticed a build up needing a bit more work.

I had Auto Finesse Iron Out delivered today which people seem to rave about.