Im finding that cleaning the alloys is taking a long time due to the design. Is it worth buying a pressure washer, will it remove the brake dust from the crevaces?

Helpful tip, once you get them clean, apply a thin coat of wax/vaseline/polish to them. Up to you whether you polish them up. You'll find that the dust sticks to wax/vaseline. Pressure washer thenm just blows it straight off or failing that they are easy to clean with soapy water.

Jon

You're not the only one having problems with that I'm still meaning to pop into halfords and buy one of those wheel brushes in the hope they would help.

Q.

Rag and a hosepipe to wash away the crap - job done.

PS: I feel damn lucky to have the design of alloy I've got.

Get them painted anthracite.

Or get yourself some Wonderwheels; does take some time but it's worth it.

Got myself one of those wheel cleaning brushes but haven't used it since I got the Wonderwheels stuff.

Originally posted by devonutopia in this post

Rag and a hosepipe to wash away the crap - job done.

PS: I feel damn lucky to have the design of alloy I've got.

Same here: no wonderstuff, just a rag, a hosepipe and a lot of patience... with 20-spoke alloys you need some zen!

Wonderwheels is great, although I think its quite harsh so only use it if the dust is really caked on.

Otherwise I use hot soapy water and the brush that came with the wonderwheels kit.

My wheels are harder to clean than most, but its worth it.

I just use a wheel brush I bought from Halfords and normal car shampoo. If the wheels are particularly bad, I'll use something like that Turtle Wax wheel cleaner - it's cheap but does a good job of removing tar spots and stuff.

I have found that the wheel brush does scratch the laquer on the wheels if not used carefully. I'm still looking for a decent alternative (one where the bristles aren't attached to a metal wire). Any suggestions?

Rob,

I know the one you mean; bristles are quite hard.

I got one from Homebase. The brush is in the shape of an enlongated oval and the bristles are quite soft. Fit nicely between the spokes and you can even get to the calipers.

Can't remember the cost; may be

Have a look at a Boots baby bottle brush.

I don't know, first its loitering round schools (I was just admiring that lovely black RS officer) and now its baby bottles

topic>

Adrian, yeah they aren't bad. John Stopani got me one from Swindon market, seems fairly non abrassive.

I reckon the best option is to get them painted. I gather anthracite is this years chrome

I am still regretting their first clean... The run-in brake dust on them looked the part! (It wasn't anthracite - too dark for my taste - but it had a nice touch of grey.)

Now I don't get half as much brake dust on them as during the first 1000kms. Or am I just driving too slow and braking too softly?

Just slightly off topic, I saw a Renault 17 being serviced yesterday by a small family-type garage. Both front ventilated discs were worn way beyond any sensible limits. The inner brakepad on the front right was missing and the piston had worn away on the disc; the outer pad was OK! The front left pads were worn to the backing plate, plus the pad wear indicator wire was broken. The inner rear pads had microscopic thickness left and the rear discs were badly worn too. Oh, and one front tyre was 90% bald; the others were OK. The owner drives 100 miles a day! I'm glad I wasn't in front of him when he needed to use what was left of the brakes, although I would probably have had advance warning from the noise of the metal on metal contact of his brakes!!!

PS Aren't anthracite wheels the colour of choice for Northeners?

I bought some Meguiars wheel cleaner stuff.

Spray it on, leave it for 30 seconds or so, then jet wash it off et voila!

My wheels were filthy so i went round the car twice - factory clean wheels without even having to touch them!

They certainly get dirty extremely quickly, I clean mine with Autoglym wheel cleaner, an Autoglym Wheel brush and then give them a coat of Turtle Wax Brake Dust Barrier. This has been my system on the bike for some time now and has worked well. However it is so easy to miss bits of the wheels on the vRS, they also seem to get dirty from the brake dust etc much quicker than the rest of the car.

Wheel brush from Homebase (soft bristles), in the motorist section you can't beat um............and some soapy water.

Des

Cleaning the alloys is the only thing that I DONT miss about my Octavia!

Originally posted by delcac in this post

Wheel brush from Homebase (soft bristles), in the motorist section you can't beat um............and some soapy water.

Des

Doh! And you couldn't have posted that last night? Went to Homebase twice today so could have picked one up...

Ah well, I guess Mark will have to clean them now

Q.

Originally posted by Quinten in this post

Doh! And you couldn't have posted that last night? Went to Homebase twice today so could have picked one up...

Ah well, I guess Mark will have to clean them now

Q.

Q.

Posted this tip loads of times, should copy and paste really.

Des

Have a look at the thread "Swissol results"