Hot Rims warning: keep off brake parts?

[ktlimq]

Some wheel cleaners does not have such warning, while others like Meguiars Hot Rims, ArmorAll, Mothers (in case of Mothers, instead of “keep off brake parts” warning, they have this on the bottle: “warning: corrosive”) have.

Does this indicate that those with such warnings are stronger cleaners?

How are you keeping the wheel cleaner off brake parts?

To me, it looks practically impossible to keep wheel cleaner spray off brake parts.

[Mike Phillips]

Yes, Hot Rims is a stronger wheel cleaner and needs to be used accordingly. It's kind of strange, everyone wants wheel cleaning to be easy, in order to be easy, what they're really saying is they want a strong cleaner to do the work for them, but as soon as you boost the cleaning strength of a wheel cleaner, now you can start causing problems for the areas around the wheel, such as brake parts, or if the customer purchases the wrong wheel cleaner for the wheel coating or material the wheel is made out of. It's really a touch challenge to satisfy everyone's needs but we do a pretty good job of it.

As far as not getting this product on brake parts, yeah that's a tough one, try spraying towards the rim and not the center of the wheel and then using your wheel brush to move the wheel cleaner from the sides towards the center.

The biggest problem with cleaning around brake components is that a lot of cars now have fancy components that are either painted, or polished, or coated in some way. No one ever thought about what that would mean when it comes time to clean them, or the wheels in front of them. This is one of the reasons we introduced this new product,



Safe for any surface in the wheel well area.

[JG_Detailing]

You can try using shop rag's. Just put them between through the slot's of your rim's. Or wrap the shop rag around your brake's.

[WaspHunter]

If you have the equipment, you could always put the car on safety stands, pull two of your wheels off, clean em and replace them. I recently detailed my mate's Skyline, and since he's got forged pieces (read: lift and remove one handed) it only adds fifteen-twenty minutes with a rattle gun. I hand-torque the nuts, of course. And while you're pulling wheels off you can rotate them to improve tyre life!

Between major cleans we plan on using old clay bars to keep the grime from accumulating. Obviously it'd be a bit of a hassle to keep raising and lowering a car every week for a detail.

Thanks for mentioning the Multi-Piece Mike, I'd been wondering what the difference was between that and Hot Rims. I think I'll get some and do my next write up as a comparison.

[JG_Detailing]

That's one way to do it. But that does take alittle time to do. Specially if you are on a time limit on doing a vehicle for someone.

[WaspHunter]

Good point. Since I've only detailed my own car, and now one other, I didn't take that into consideration. I should add then, that some people might not like you jacking their car up and removing the wheels, and the extra equipment is quite pricey just for detailing.