Hot Rims Brake Dust Barrier

[Murr1525]

Cant really go too big with an aerosol.

[Michael Stoops]

A little evidence of the durability of this product:


Last week I had the opportunity to try some TriX on my car. For those who don't know about this non-Meguiar's product, it's sort of a combination of IronX and TarX in one bottle. These are pH neutral products that change color as they dissolve and break down embedded iron deposits, tar, etc and are supposed to be completely safe to use on paint, wheels, and virtually all automotive surfaces. The one big caveat is to avoid allowing the product to dry on plastic trim. So, I wanted to give this a go on the wheels of my daily driver to see how it worked. I sprayed it onto cool wheels and let it dwell for the time specified in the directions - actually, for a bit less than the time stated. The stuff did it's funky color change thing, bleeding purple from my wheels, telling me that it was doing its thing on the existing brake dust and other foreign material on the wheels. I then rinsed with water from the hose and to my horror the wheel was showing horrible white staining. It looked like I had used a strong acid based cleaner on a bare aluminum wheel - but these are fully clear coated wheels, polished lip and painted spokes, but fully clear coated. I've used Hot Rims All Wheel Cleaner (and the new All Wheel & Tire Cleaner version) and even Wheel Brightener numerous times in the past without issue. The wheels are several years old, but otherwise in great shape.

Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out about this. I dried the wheel and starting inspecting it closely to see what the heck was going on. If this product was supposed to be pH neutral and safe to use on paint, wheels, etc, then why the heck did it damage my wheels? Well, as it turns out, it did NOT damage my wheels at all. Let's be 100% clear about this - TriX did NOT damage my wheels. What it did do, however, was react with the Brake Dust Barrier on my wheels. How did I determine this? Well, when I applied BDB it was done as a test, so I had taped off half the wheel and applied BDB to just one half. When I was inspecting the wheel closely for damage, I noticed the white staining abruptly stopped at a very definitive line - very strange, don't you think? Well, it turns out the line where the "damage" stopped was also the line where the BDB stopped. And I had applied the BDB a year ago. Yes, a year ago! And it was still there, even though I had used All Wheel & Tire Cleaner and Wheel Brightener several times in that year. I was stunned!

OK, so the situation needed to be corrected - I wasn't about to drive around with this wheel half white and stained looking. Turns out a quick but somewhat heavy spray of BDB onto a microfiber towel and then wiped onto the wheel very quickly broke down the old application of BDB and removed it fully. The staining went away with it and the wheels look perfectly fine once again.

So, if you're looking for a really, really long lasting product to help protect your wheels, Brake Dust Barrier is it. But if you're a huge fan of IronX, TriX and TarX you might want to keep it off your wheels if they have BDB on them. It is extremely rare that we see strange product interactions like this, but things happen. Fortunately for me there wan't any real damage done, but it sure looked scary for a minute! This level of durability out of BDB was a real surprise though!

[jarred767]

Cant really go too big with an aerosol.

Thanks, I figured that, but probably worded my question wrong/didn't really realize what I really wanted to know. I guess more specifically, since there are no larger versions of it, could a detail shop buy this stuff by the case or something to save on cost, or is it simply by the single canister?

And that review is crazy. I look forward to any easier wheel clean on both of my personal cars for sure.

[Murr1525]

Hmm.. I was going to use the TRIX in the fall.. going to have to figure out some way to tell when to clean them.