Review - Blackfire Tire and Wheel Cleaner

[Jaretr1]

Hello,

Meghan was kind enough to send me a bottle of this to try out pertaining to its new release. I gave it a try and here are my observations and thoughts.

:BLACKFIRE Tire & Wheel Cleaner is a 100% water-based cleaner! It contains no acids, no butyl of any kind and no petroleum distillates. It is safe for all wheel finishes including polished aluminum and clear coats. We combined this new, non-ionic surfactant with additional emulsifiers and wetting agents to allow it to quickly and safely remove all manner of dirt, road oils and brake dust from both tires and wheels.
Technical Note: This is not a spray on/hose off cleaner. It requires some agitation from a sponge or brush to break the bond between the brake dust and the wheel. Spray on/hose off cleaners are typically acid based which could harm the wheel's surface over time. A quick wipe with a sponge or brush is usually all it takes to remove even baked-on brake dust and road grime with BLACKFIRE Total Eclipse Tire & Wheel Cleaner.

There is no need to buy one cleaner for tires and another cleaner for wheels! BLACKFIRE Tire & Wheel Cleaner works equally well on both wheels and tires to remove oils, road grime and brake dust. It leaves both the tire and wheel squeaky clean.
Application Tips:

1. Clean one wheel at a time.
2. Spray wheel with water.
3. Spray a fine mist of cleaner over entire tire & wheel.
4. Allow cleaner to dwell for up to 30 seconds. Do not let it dry on the wheel. For best results, agitate surface with a soft brush or sponge.
5. Hose off thoroughly with a strong water spray.
6. Dry tire and wheel with a clean towel.

The first time I used this, I did not agitate with a brush and it did absolutely NOTHING on a lightly dirty wheel. For me, the requirement of using a brush is a little bit of an issue. My normal wheel cleaning procedure is dipping my wheel woolie into soapy water and washing my wheels. Adding this product would an additional step for a normal routine.

According to the text, it was reformulated to be thicker, but I still found it to be on the thin side. My favorite wheel cleaner (not sold at AG) is thick, and removes most everything without brushing!




This is the before photo. The wheel is not very dirty with brake dust, but it is dirty with road spray. I wiped a few lines on the bottom lip to show the buildup. Notice though there is water beading on the wheel.

The product is reddish, and as I mentioned not that thick. It does not have any color changing properties either.


Here is the after. I let the product dwell maybe 30 seconds, then agitated it with my soapy wheel woolie. The combo of the soapy water and wheel cleaner made thick suds. As you can see the wheel is clean. But here is my problem, and a HUGE problem...in this photo the wheel is wet, the water is just sitting on the wheel in a sheet. There is NO water repellency left on the wheel, so I am presuming no protection either. This doesnt happen with my favorite wheel cleaner or a few different iron remover type products. The protection I had used was Hydro2. Did this wheel cleaner remove the protection? I can only assume it did. And that would not be good.


After reapplying Hydro2.

Due to the fact it seemed this cleaner removed all the protection, as well as requires agitation, I can only see using this cleaner for deep cleaning really dirty wheels. I would not use it for regular maintenance cleaning. There are wheel cleaners that do not require agitation and do not remove protection and leave a wheel nearly spotless. I would love to try it on really dirty wheels to see how it handles really bad brake dust compared to a few of my other favorites.

I did not focus on the tires, and this should work on those as well.

Thanks for reading.

[The Guz]

Thanks for the review.

Do you think the residue left behind was not washed off completely and was masking the water behavior of hydro? McKee's wheel cleaner does the same thing to my wheels that are coated.

[MattPersman]

Question is what is the reasoning behind these wheel cleaners that you need to scrub the entire wheel and tire to get the dirt and brake dust off?

Can’t you just use a normal soap for that doing virtually the same?

Maybe I’m missing something but I have bought wheel cleaners in the past with the same experience spray on and they do nothing unless you get in there and clean the wheel yourself.

I️ know the acid based ones can be labeled a little harsh by some
But at diluted level they do an incredible job with out breaking out the brushes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jaretr1]

Question is what is the reasoning behind these wheel cleaners that you need to scrub the entire wheel and tire to get the dirt and brake dust off?

Can’t you just use a normal soap for that doing virtually the same?

Maybe I’m missing something but I have bought wheel cleaners in the past with the same experience spray on and they do nothing unless you get in there and clean the wheel yourself.

I️ know the acid based ones can be labeled a little harsh by some
But at diluted level they do an incredible job with out breaking out the brushes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with you 100%. I normally just use soapy water with my wheel brush to clean my wheels. I only pull out a wheel cleaner for a deep cleaner and or a really really bad wheel.


As far as residue, I power sprayed the wheel to rinse it, if it was leaving anything behind, thats also not good IMHO.

[Pats300zx]

I really like the Blackfire Wheel and Tire Cleaner. I found on the Lexus wheels that I used it on that it cleaned the wheels and tires really well WITH agitation. I typically don't use wheel cleaners cause I wash my wheels frequently and just use soap and water. However, I was impressed with how well this product cleaned both the wheel and tire. I wish I had been sent more of it