Posted earlier about pitted chrome wheels on my '03 T&C Limited. MUCH brake dust accumulation, initial cleaning seemed to indicate pitting. Went back to take another look, decided to give them a shot with steel wool. Voila !...got rid of the black. Doing just one small area took like 15 minutes, at this rate I could spend two days at it and end up not being able to straighten the back for weeks. <g> Is there ANYTHING that can be used to disolve this crap ? Have tried to 'so called' brake dust cleaners and they essentially do nothing. Some sort of solvent should work (???) Thanks all ! Gary
On really badly brake-dusted mags I have alternated a good degreaser with a commercial mag wheel cleaner with some success, even on the backsides of cast wheels. Scrubbing with a stiff vegetable brush or similar scrub brush helps too, with a stiff toothbrush filling in for those hard to reach areas. NB: make sure the mag wheel cleaner you select says that it is safe for chrome; some may spot the finish. Most of my experience is with uncoated aluminum wheels. A good coat of wax, just like you would use for the body, may help some with keeping the wheels from collecting more brake dust. The owner's manual for my Porsche actually suggests rubbing petroleum jelly into the wheels to prevent damage from brake dust; it seems to work, although I'm not sure that that would work well on chromed wheels. Personally, if I were a little less vain, I'd just run regular steel wheels painted semi-gloss black... every 10 years or so you just sandblast them and repaint them, problem solved nate
It is called cleaning the wheels more often then you have been doing. Brake dust is corrosive, and when sitting on wheels will eventually eat into the aluminum causing it to pit and collect more dust. So doing it every two weeks, not only keeps the buildup down it also makes the van look pretty. It even states in the owners manual to clean your wheels of brake dust!
