- Your newly refinished rims do not require any special care.
- Keeping them looking good is easy. Use a “fat” soft paint brush with a mild detergent to clear away brake dust. “Simple Green” sold at Home Depot works great.
- Stay away from car washes that use very strong brake dust cleaners. This can be very acidic and can dull the finish of your rims if it is not completely washed off and allowed to dry or cake on.
- After winter, or just before, if you are storing your wheels then wash them and let them dry thoroughly before you put them away. Lingering salt from the roads can deteriorate any finish especially in a damp garage.
- Be careful with tire shine! Petroleum based tire shine will deteriorate your rubber tires over time. Also, if you apply tire shine to your tires be very careful that it does not drip onto the finish of your wheels. If tire shine drips onto the finish of a wheel and is not washed off, allowed to dry, and bakes onto the finish of a wheel it will leave “bleach marks”.
- Waxing your rims is not necessary. However, if your wheels are very clean then you can apply a coating of wax to your finish that will help salts and road debris wash off easier the next time you clean your wheels.
- If you want your wheels to last a long time, refinished or not, you must put a little bit of care into them. This means that you should wash the wheels every 4-8 weeks especially in winter. Brake dust, road salt, dirt, etc. can all bake into the coating of a wheel because a wheel heats up and cools off when you drive the car. Once these contaminates bake into the wheel then it is more likely that the alloys under your coating will begin to corrode, and cosmetically it will be impossible to clean the surface of your wheel without scratching it and ruining the glossy shine.