Keeping alloys clean and looking good

[Razor61]

alloys are not easy to keep clean and ‘like new’ in general. Lexus alloy wheels suffer from corrosion more than most and I was fortunate to get a recently refurbished set with my car which I thoroughly cleaned with Farecla G3 to remove any trace of tar and anything else. I then coated them with Gtechniq C5 wheel armour, all set now I thought and just need to clean them properly when washing the car using a wheel brush etc. After a few months it became apparent that just cleaning them as described above was not enough. I have used Iron-X in the past and it was good stuff but I used a bottle of Auto Finnesse Iron Out on my alloys today to try it. This stuff worked brilliantly and brought the wheels back to ‘as new’, like they were when I first fettled them with G3 etc a few moths ago. For anyone that doesn’t know how this type of stuff works, you spray it on, leave it for a while, agitate it if needed and the colour changes to purple on contact with contaminants, iron etc.hence the name.

I used this stuff yesterday on my son in laws car paintwork ( on his suggestion ) before clay barring, to highlight and remove as many contaminants as possible, it worked great. clay barring after was a breeze so I thought I’d wash my car, spray this stuff on one of the front wings (whole car had been clay barred and buffed months ago) to see if it highlighted anything I’d missed and also spray on the alloys wheels. The wing didn’t highlight anything but the alloys did, which I fully expected. I agitated the stuff on the alloys with a small brush and rinsed off. The results were pretty amazing really as shown below. 

[Malc]

my wheels are " beyond the pale " and I'm going to have them dipped and powdercoated etc .....  but i said that about 18 months ago and leaving it till after my trip touring the Emerald Isle at which I returned in October ......  2018

I'm expecting it to be @£300 incl the centre caps at a local establishment

trouble is I don't see any performance enhancing issues in spending that sort of dosh ...  so it sits on the backburner till I get shamed into it maybe 

Malc

 

[Razor61]

 

37 minutes ago, Malc said:

trouble is I don't see any performance enhancing issues in spending that sort of dosh ...  so it sits on the backburner till I get shamed into it maybe 

yep, it’s an aesthetic thing but grotty wheels can spoil the whole look of a car especially if the rest of the car looks great. Just my opinion of course 😉
I bought a second hand set of wheels last week, I like to have another set of wheels so I can take the wheels to have a new a set of tyres fitted then swop them over. They are in reasonable condition and I plan to have them refurbished at Lepsons, used them in the past and they do an A1 job, and have new tyres fitted at the the same time ready to just fit them when the time comes which will be in the next 6 months. I sent pictures of the wheels to Lepsons and they said one of them is corroded, which I knew and is no surprise for Lexus alloys, so they cannot guarantee the finish will last as long as they expect. Corrosion will come back at some point, maybe 2-3 years or a bit longer but it will come back they said. I’ll send my spare wheel instead so the set will be good and keep the corroded one as a spare. Regarding centre caps, I’ve ended up with 3 x sets. 1 x set on the car and 2 x sets from buying the spare set of wheels plus a job lot of spare parts. I bought the job lots of spares just for the genuine antenna. Antenna worked but the telescopic bit was seized a bit and didn’t extend fully so swopped it for an new replacement I bought a few weeks ago. Works perfect now and it’s a genuine unit so fits spot on, the one I had was a generic one which didn’t fit great at all. The original telescopic bit is soaking in release fluid to see if I can free it up, if it does it will go back in.

[Tulpen]

When I had my 400, Lexus UK used to do a wheel swapping scheme. From what I remember (circa 2005) it cost around $400 pounds for the exchange of 4 wheels - including swapping over the tyres.  Do they still offer that service, and how much does it cost now?

[Silversalmon]

A chauffeur once told me the most important thing was clean glass and clean wheels, the rest wasn't as important. True

[Razor61]

5 minutes ago, Silversalmon said:

the most important thing was clean glass and clean wheels, the rest wasn't as important. True

Good point from the chauffeur, I’ve always thought that cleaning and polishing the glass makes the whole car look good /better. I spend/have spent a lot of time on the paintwork so the glass shouldn’t be left out. I’ve always cleaned the glass and used a glass polish but recently I’ve started to clay bar the glass to remove contaminants, if the paintwork has contaminants then the glass will as well. I can testify to this because I’ve clay barred the glass on my son in laws car today. There was quite a bit of crap that came off and after putting some glass polish on, it looked top notch. Sounds really ott but it’s true😀

[Silversalmon]

Will definitely try the clay bar treatment on my glass followed by polish, I can't abide smeared glass. Thanks for that tip

[PeteTP]

Now then gentle folk of the LOC, village idiots like me need careful guidance. Never having handled a clay bar but in total agreement with the chauffeur, may I please ask which particular product you hold in high esteem?

 

As always all wisdom gratefully received. TVM in anticipation.

 

PeteTP

[Malc]

3 hours ago, PeteTP said:

but in total agreement with the chauffeur,

best i just call mine up and task him to see to all this eh !  

Malc

[PeteTP]

Not having a chauffeur it’s DIY for me☹️. Any product recommendation Malc or anybody else who cares to share their experience. Thnx.

 

Pete TP

[The-Acre]

5 hours ago, PeteTP said:

Now then gentle folk of the LOC, village idiots like me need careful guidance. Never having handled a clay bar but in total agreement with the chauffeur, may I please ask which particular product you hold in high esteem?

 

As always all wisdom gratefully received. TVM in anticipation.

 

PeteTP

If you're referring to clay bars I used the Maguires kit which when I bought it was on offer at Halfords, plus 15% off with LOC card.  I'd never used one before and I was amazed at how smooth the paintwork was afterwards.  I was also amazed that I didn't pass out, it's hard work!

[PeteTP]

Thanks v much for that. I will get one in.

PeteTP

[Cotswold Pete]

I find the Farecla G3 Body Prep clay Mitt (Halfords) easy to use, not tried a clay bar, but the mitt gets a nice smooth finish.

I guess now that spring is here, time to give the barge a spring clean!!

 

[PeteTP]

Thanks for that too, Pete.

PeteTP

[rich1068]

On 3/16/2020 at 5:27 PM, Cotswold Pete said:

I find the Farecla G3 Body Prep Clay Mitt (Halfords) easy to use, not tried a clay bar, but the mitt gets a nice smooth finish.

Ditto. Great product. I've clayed cars loads of times and the mitt is certainly the easiest way to tackle the job.

A little tip shown to me once by a Swissvax rep. Find a cellophane wrapper or similar, something like the wrapper cigarette packs come/came in. Feel your paintwork with your fingers to see how smooth it is then put your fingers inside the wrapper and feel it again. You'll be astonished at the difference. The cellophane accentuates all the imperfections your fingers don't normally pick up. Claying the car should remove all these little imperfections stuck to the paintwork.