Is Pinnacle Advanced Wheel Cleaner the right product for me?

[Mr_Anderson]

I have a set of un-coated aluminum wheels, that have been neglected. They have a lot of staining from baked-on brake dust. I washed, clayed, and polished, and the stains are still there.

Will Pinnacle Advanced Wheel Cleaner clean enough brake dust off, that I can polish out the remainder of it? Or do I need to skip straight to wet-sanding the wheels?

[Mr_Anderson]

Could I get a mod to delete that person's spam reply? Thank you.

[Bruno Soares]

Could I get a mod to delete that person's spam reply? Thank you.

Mods have deleted themselves from this forum. Haven't seen one around in a while so that post will likely stay here, unfortunately.

[vaced]

I have a set of un-coated aluminum wheels, that have been neglected. They have a lot of staining from baked-on brake dust. I washed, clayed, and polished, and the stains are still there.

Will Pinnacle Advanced Wheel Cleaner clean enough brake dust off, that I can polish out the remainder of it? Or do I need to skip straight to wet-sanding the wheels?

If we are talking seriously embedded brake dust: My guess is that you won't be able to polish it out, since you said you already tried claying and polishing.

But unless you have/really want pinnacle, it might be worth getting something at a store to try.

[Mr_Anderson]

If we are talking seriously embedded brake dust: My guess is that you won't be able to polish it out, since you said you already tried claying and polishing.

But unless you have/really want pinnacle, it might be worth getting something at a store to try.

I don't really WANT to try a product that I haven't used before, and have it fail. Which just leaves me wasting more of my time. And I don't expect any one product to be a miracle cure and make my wheels look new and unblemished. I don't even expect them to look new and unblemished when I'm done with them.

I was hoping to find an easier intermediate step other than wet-sanding before polishing. I used Mothers mag and aluminum polish and one of Mother's drill mounted cones.

I'm also considering using a wool polishing ball and a more aggressive polish. I'll need to research what polish to use.

[Mr_Anderson]

Mods have deleted themselves from this forum. Haven't seen one around in a while so that post will likely stay here, unfortunately.

That sounds like the beginning of the end for the forum.

[bill walsh]

mike p just showed a video of polishing wheels on auto forge.net

[vaced]

I don't really WANT to try a product that I haven't used before, and have it fail. Which just leaves me wasting more of my time.

I agree. To be 100% clear, I don't think using that wheel cleaner will "fail" it the sense of not helping with the brake dust. I do think that it would help with the brake dust, and that it would help with the polishing (less chance of scratches etc). But I don't think it would help enough to be able to polish everything that's left away.

[Mr_Anderson]

mike p just showed a video of polishing wheels on auto forge.net

Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

[Mr_Anderson]

I agree. To be 100% clear, I don't think using that wheel cleaner will "fail" it the sense of not helping with the brake dust. I do think that it would help with the brake dust, and that it would help with the polishing (less chance of scratches etc). But I don't think it would help enough to be able to polish everything that's left away.

I'm not even expecting to completely get rid of the stains. I've only done one wheel so far, and it took so long that I thought I'd look for a better way. I'm hoping for one of these outcomes:

1) Achieve the same results on the other three in less time.
2) Achieve better results in the same time.
3) Achieve better results in less time. (Best outcome, but not expected.)

Perfection would be a pleasant surprise, but it isn't expected.