Chrishazle
MB Enthusiast
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2008
- Messages
- 5,449
- Location
- Nr Ashford, Kent
- Car
- 2008 S204 C220CDI Elegance Estate Auto, 2008 R171 facelift SLK280 Auto.
Put the winter boots on the car yesterday (on lovely shiny almost new rims!) so today was time to clean the original wheels for storage. It's a July 08 S204 Elegance with standard 16" rims with far too many spokes!
As I suspected, the light refurb MB Ashford gave the wheels in March (part of the prep of selling the car to me) was just a blow-over of the outsides. The insides were thick solid black, so first I pressure washed them to get rid of the worst of it.
The first 3 rims (both rears and front nearside) came up well enough with just 2 applications of Iron X - spray on, wait a while, go round with 1" paint brush then a small sponge with the nylon scrubbing face, rinse well and repeat. Great, add rimwax and move to storage rack.
4th rim - front offside - initially looked the same as the other 3. However, an hour or more, 8 or 10 Iron X treatments as above, plus a try with tardis on a cloth and a bit of BMW (BAN!! - it was a freebie I happened to have) alloy wheel cleaning gel and there's still quite a lot of black on the inside of the rim. Some is light speckling, some is heavy speckiling, then there are 4 or 6 places right at the gap between the spokes where there's a 2" x 1" solid blob, right where it will be visible. Iron X hardly changes colour now when I spray it on.
In the end I said "**** this for a game of toy soldiers", added rimwax and put the wheel on the rack.
So, short of a trip to Rimtec for a chemical strip and refurb (which, for all 4 would set me back £230) is there anything else I can try to get this black muck removed?
As I suspected, the light refurb MB Ashford gave the wheels in March (part of the prep of selling the car to me) was just a blow-over of the outsides. The insides were thick solid black, so first I pressure washed them to get rid of the worst of it.
The first 3 rims (both rears and front nearside) came up well enough with just 2 applications of Iron X - spray on, wait a while, go round with 1" paint brush then a small sponge with the nylon scrubbing face, rinse well and repeat. Great, add rimwax and move to storage rack.
4th rim - front offside - initially looked the same as the other 3. However, an hour or more, 8 or 10 Iron X treatments as above, plus a try with tardis on a cloth and a bit of BMW (BAN!! - it was a freebie I happened to have) alloy wheel cleaning gel and there's still quite a lot of black on the inside of the rim. Some is light speckling, some is heavy speckiling, then there are 4 or 6 places right at the gap between the spokes where there's a 2" x 1" solid blob, right where it will be visible. Iron X hardly changes colour now when I spray it on.
In the end I said "**** this for a game of toy soldiers", added rimwax and put the wheel on the rack.
So, short of a trip to Rimtec for a chemical strip and refurb (which, for all 4 would set me back £230) is there anything else I can try to get this black muck removed?