I’m sure most of you guys know this, but it might help someone sometime ....

WHEEL CLEANING TIP:

Cleaned my chrome rims. This was a bit of a journey. They were pretty nasty, so Valerie (My GF)
and I got some Meguiar's wheel cleaner. This is the kind you spray on, leave for 2-4 minutes, and then rinse off with water. We did this at the car wash so we wouldn’t be rinsing stuff off in our driveway. This did a decent job of getting some of the grime off, but the wheels were still pretty dirty. Of course you can do multiple treatments of this and it will get better and better, but we were home now, so we didn’t want to spray in our driveway and have the runoff go into the lawn. So I ran down to Walmart and got the Meguiars Waterless Wheel Cleaner spray. No rinsing, just spray on and wipe off. This worked a little more, but the wheels were still dirty ...

Then I remembered that I have some #0000 steel wool ! After consulting The Oracle (YouTube), I determined this was safe and should work well.

So I used it. Wow what a difference. I sprayed on the Meguiars Waterless cleaner and scrubbed a bit with the steel wool .... wiped it off, and the wheels look close to new !

I really like the Meguiars products in general, and coupled with the steel wool, these wheels cleaned up great !!!

Here are a couple “before and after” photos. Keep in mind that in the “before” pics, the wheels had already been “cleaned” twice !!!

So yeah ... if you wanna clean your rims or wheels, try the Meguiar's
Waterless Wheel & Tire Cleaner and some #0000 steel wool !

🙂


BEFORE:





AFTER:





BEFORE - CLOSE UP:





AFTER - CLOSE UP:





SHINY RIMS LOOK GREAT !

 

Maybe this would be better suited in the “wheels and tires” section. I just thought of it as regular maintenance. Mods, move it if you like :)

 

ACarrell- Nice job...

Are you sure those are Chrome ? look more like my factory polished + clear-coated forged alloys.


.
Chrysler Red Ceramic Hi temp paint

 

Nice info on how to clean a dirty rim. But, I don't think those are factory HHR rims.
These are the HHR rims shown in an original sales brochure. Post #1 shows a different rim.

 

AFAIK they are not factory wheels. Not sure which model Chevy theyre from though. I do like the way they look now that they are cleaned up. Still may change them eventually, but for now they’re good.

 

i don’t believe that these are the factory. I think the previous owner added them. They’re Chevys, but not sure Which ones

 

Well, if they were clear coated before, they may not be any more...

 

I could not detect any clear coat on them. Among other things, I build guitars, so I’m pretty familiar with finishes and clear coats. I did do some research and tests before going ahead with the steel wool.

Besides, with the light amount of actual work I had to do with the steel wool, if there WAS a clear coat, it would’ve had to be micro thin (basically useless) to be damaged in any way by the #0000 gauge steel wool.

 

Simple Green or Purple Power has always worked great for me, even cleaning the engine bay.

 

Thanks for sharing a great way to clean your wheels!
they could be Malibu rims,



2005 Chevrolet Malibu rims



Here’s one mounted with the centre cap installed