Suggestions Requested For Really Bad Brake Dust Residue

T

techdude99

New member
This is a 2004 TSX with OEM Aluminum wheels. The caked on reside from the OEM & Hawk DTC-30 metallic pads over the last few years (it was a dual purpose DD & HPDE car) looks bad. FYI- It`s a Southern car with one Pittsburgh winter.

After searching the forum, I took the wheels off and performed a thorough cleaning with Meguiars Ultimate soap, let them dry, and went three rounds with Sonax and a microfiber sponge. The surface is looking a lot better but the barrels are awful.

Are the surfaces too far gone to clean without stripping and refinishing?

If not, I`d appreciate recommendations on nursing them back to health (as much as possible) without destroying the finish.

Unfortunately, I put the wheels back on before taking pics, but you should be able to see the problem areas.

Thanks!
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I don`t think there is anything that will knock that out in one pass, you`re going to be doing lots of hard scrubbing. Meg`s wheel brightener is what I`d reach for. I believe Hot Wheels Chrome wheel cleaner is the consumer version that is easily found. It`s nasty stuff so be sure to follow the warnings.

I also use the non scratch scotch Brite pads for the barells but they do indeed scratch a bit.
 
Yeah, you`re gonna need multiple cleaning sessions with a wheel cleaner, Techdude. You may never be able to relieve that pitting. Wheels need to be tended to on a regular basis - - that`s the reality if you want them to look their best.

If the appearance is bothering you, and the wheels are in decent shape, re-finishing could be a solution.
 
The problem with that barrel is it was never painted--I don`t get "premium" brands that don`t paint the barrels and they pit and they never look right. I`ve had two sets of wheels painted over the years primarily to get the barrels painted because I couldn`t stand washing the wheels and having the barrels look like crap. Of course it`s more of a problem with the open-spoke designs that are common today, than it was when the wheel faces obscured most of the barrel.

So if you get them repainted you won`t have to worry about cleaning the spokes, lol. Probably Meg`s Wheel Brightener is your best shot, but I don`t advocate the use of that product, I`ve seen Brown Royal do a good job, but I`ve never used it. It may be the spokes are pitted through the paint if that`s been on there for years.
 
You may want to look for Malco brake off. The auction company people use it around here for just that problem. Please wear gloves and sleeves!
 
If, after you get rid of the staining on your rims, you want to prevent this problem from happening again try Akebono Pads.

I`ve been using the ASP model on my GS400 for over a decade with no problems.

Almost the same braking, 95%, as the Semi-metallic but none of the staining or pitting problems associated.

Either Tire Rack or Amazon seem to have them available. For your car it`s either the ASP 787A or ASP 787 for the front.

Never had to re-powder coat the rims because of dust damage. Akebonos dust is quite manageable.
 
Marine Clerk said:
If, after you get rid of the staining on your rims, you want to prevent this problem from happening again try Akebono Pads.
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I`ll second the Akebono Pro-Act pads, I had a car that I was washing the wheels in the middle of the week because they would turn black, with the factory pads. Switched to the Pro-Acts, and it was night and day. No difference in stopping power that I could detect.
 
MattPersman said:
Would suggest flash brown royal
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Just ordered a bottle.

Dan said:
I don`t think there is anything that will knock that out in one pass, you`re going to be doing lots of hard scrubbing. Meg`s wheel brightener is what I`d reach for...
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I`ll try this method I`d the Brown Royal doesn`t work.

tom p. said:
Yeah, you`re gonna need multiple cleaning sessions with a wheel cleaner, Techdude. You may never be able to relieve that pitting...
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It`s the price for my previous negligence, but I`ll do what`s necessary to get the car looking better.

Setec Astronomy said:
The problem with that barrel is it was never painted--I don`t get "premium" brands that don`t paint the barrels and they pit and they never look right...Of course it`s more of a problem with the open-spoke designs that are common today, than it was when the wheel faces...Probably Meg`s Wheel Brightener is your best shot...I`ve seen Brown Royal do a good job, but I`ve never used it. It may be the spokes are pitted through the paint if that`s been on there for years.
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I`m with you and will look into painting my higher end wheels that see track time and need protection from high temperature compounds. I`ll add Meg`s to my list.

Mike lambert said:
You may want to look for Malco brake off. The auction company people use it around here for just that problem. Please wear gloves and sleeves!
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I`ll add Malco to my list.

Marine Clerk said:
If, after you get rid of the staining on your rims, you want to prevent this problem from happening again try Akebono...
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Setec Astronomy said:
I`ll second the Akebono Pro-Act pads...
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My low dust research led me to Akebono, too. I picked up a full set along with Brembo rotors when I did the brake job last week, which caused me to take a closer look at the wheels and...start this thread! :)


As I become more involved with detailing, I appreciate the great advice from the community and eagerness to share knowledge!
 
Once the stuff eats into the oe finish enough that you have pitting (as it appears in those pix), the oe powdercoating (generally not paint) has been compromised and the underlying aluminum is corroding. Time to refinish/replace IME.

The barrels/backsides of the spokes have always been finished on all of my (remotely modern) cars, but it`s seldom the same quality as on the faces and you have to keep up with them from the jump or the compromising gets going in short order.

But hey...going over them with some really aggressive Wheel Cleaner might make enough of a diff for them to be livable, or at least OK for track days.

Does any OEM paint wheels as opposed to powdercoating them these days? Even the wheels on my old Mazda MPV were powdercoated.
 
Accumulator said:
Does any OEM paint wheels as opposed to powdercoating them these days? Even the wheels on my old Mazda MPV were powdercoated.
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I think we`ve had this discussion before, as you know I have had work done at a sort-of local place to me that has a very good reputation. The first time I was there, I had a set of wheels that had a (clearcoated) bright lip on them, which had corroded around the weights. They wanted to paint the whole wheel and I said "but it`s powdercoat" and the owner laughed at me and told me no, it`s just paint.

I don`t know anything about Mazda`s, but I`ve had 3 sets of wheels painted in the last 5 or 6 years, and they were all just paint...although I did have one of them powdercoated...which was a disaster.
 
Setec Astronomy- Yeah, I wish Ketch would chime in on this as he`d know better than most.

Other than the ones I`ve had refinished and the ones on the Jag, the wheels on all my current vehicles are powdercoated. But I oughta be careful about extrapolating too much...
 
Accumulator said:
Setec Astronomy- Yeah, I wish Ketch would chime in on this as he`d know better than most.

Other than the ones I`ve had refinished and the ones on the Jag, the wheels on all my current vehicles are powdercoated. But I oughta be careful about extrapolating too much...
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The funny thing is 25 years ago for whatever reason, I thought wheels were powdercoated, too, so we must have been getting that info from somewhere. How can you tell the ones you have now are powdercoated? You probably have experience with a lot more brands than I do; I`m only going by my limited experience, which has all been paint (I think...you`ve got me wondering about my GM high-polish clear...which are the ones that I DID have powdercoated when I had them refinished).
 
Setec Astronomy- My admittedly unscientific take is based on what Ketch had said here (bet that`s where you got it) a while back and the way none of my presumed-powdercoated wheels are correctable the way the known-painted ones are.

The "Machined Finish" wheels on my OBS Tahoe, like the ones on the A8, are not just clearcoated with paint, or stuff like M101, applied via aggressive methods, would correct `em a lot better than it does. It`s exactly like trying to correct any of my known-powdercoated stuff.

E.g., I`ve had a number of wheels refinished by guys who used paint. NONE of those behaved the way my oe-finish ones do but rather behaved like, well...hard paint. Even when they look the same, the painted ones are infinitely softer. The guy who refinished my MPV`s wheels said that he knew right away that they were powdercoated because he had such a terrible time prepping them.."hard as a rock".

As I said, unscientific. But for my (practical) purposes it`s at least, uhm... inductively compelling.
 
I used to read car-industry magazines (not car magazines) so I`m sure that must be where I got the idea wheels were being powdercoated (or I read it in a car brochure), because it was long before I was a member here. Whatever was on those GM high-polish clear wheels was thick and hard, but when I took them to be refinished, they didn`t make it sound like the factory finish was powdercoat (I mean that wasn`t presented to me as the factory-equivalent process). I dunno.
 
I`d try a good wheel cleaner and a MR Clean Magic Eraser on the wheel surface.

Some GM wheels were coated with a really thick clear of some type, maybe eurethane.
 
Setec Astronomy- Trying to figure out what`s really on "shiny metal" can be a challenge! I never did get straight/consistent answers from Audi about the aluminum trim on the A8/S8..anodizing/powdercoat/weird paint/who knows what.

Those Trade Journals may well have been where you read about it, if not on some thread here.
 
My suggestion would be to try out a tar remover or adhisive remover of some kind. As I think what the pads are made of is some kind of metall glued together. And with a lot of these residue I useally start with tar remover and then wheel cleaner and if need to alternate until this is desolved. On the other hand the residue you have left on the spokes looks like some can be when a break has jammed and spit out a lot of brake pad residue and also from the rotor. This useally gets very hot and the metall in the brake pads seems to be very soft for being a metall. So I have been wondering if not the heat build is hot enough to make the brake pad metall solid when it`s gets on the rim. And then you are almost impossible to remove it as it could be through the powder coating or clearcoat and base coat. And melted into the aluminum. So the only option when gone this far is to grind down the metall and repaint the rim. Cause if you would get this of and useally done with a strong acid based wheel cleaner and no Wheel Brightener is not enough LOL. It`s goes under the metall residue and actually desolves or start a chemical reaction on the aluminum underneath the metall. So it`s gets released. The problem know is that you have bare aluminum to handle that has been treated with acid and started oxidize very much. And clean this up and make it look nice is not possible on the rims face but maybe on a barrel. But best would be to repaint them.
 
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