Keep Custom Wheels
Clean:
Some Simple Tips To
Help You Keep Your Custom Wheels Clean
By Gregg Hall
Today's car enthusiast personalizes his or her ride by
installing an awesome set of rims and tires. It is not unheard
of for the price of these custom add-ons to cost upwards of
$1,500 dollars for EACH TIRE! It doesn't take a math genius to
see that times four, putting personalized wheels on your car
can be a pricey investment and one that you will want to take
care of.
When you take your car in for
detailing, you should have already cleaned your tires, at least
cursorily. You may find that washing your cars tires will
become a common task. This is because they are so close to the
asphalt, much closer than the car's body itself, so they tend
to get far dirtier, far grimier, and far faster. Tires suffer
the brunt of the abuse that comes from driving, the scum that
is caked on the road, dusts from brakes, and good old fashioned
tar all combine and cake onto them.
Cleaning and caring for your tires and wheels follows much
the same pattern that caring and cleaning for the rest of your
car does. You have to wash first, clean, polish, and then
protect from future dirt. As you wash your wheels, you will
need to use detergent, wheel cleaner, a suitable polish, and
then the right sort of wheel protectant.
As you are going through this process, it is most times
easiest to break the cleaning down into different stages. First
do the left rear rim and its tire, and then move forward to the
left front wheel and tire, etc. This saves time as you
concentrate your efforts at one location, and then move on.
There is a bit of disagreement about what to do after
cleaning both wheels and tires has been done. Some people claim
that it is better to detail the tire first, and some people
insist that it is better to do the wheel.
Our experience tells us, however, that it is best to perform
a thorough cleaning of the wheel, and then one of the tires,
then polish and add protectant to the tire, before finishing up
by polishing and protecting the wheel. This order is the most
efficient, we think, because it wipes away any run-off from the
polishing of the tire that dripped onto the wheel when you are
finishing the wheel up.
No matter how you decide what works best for you, there is a
consensus among professionals that it is best to work on one
tire at a time. This keeps any of the chemical cleaners or
polishes from drying on your tires or wheels, which can cause
stains or other damages. Likewise, if your car has been driven
recently, make sure that the wheels are cool enough so that
they will not cause cleaners or polishes to heat up. Heat makes
these chemicals react more violently, which can cause damage to
your rims. Magnesium and aluminum rims are especially
vulnerable.
Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach, Florida.
Find more about this as well as vintage wheels at
www.vintagewheelsplus.com
Are you also looking for nifty innovative product to go with
your set of wheels? If you are, check out Avani Revolv's
Patented Tire Valve
Cap.
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