A2Z or Simple Green does the trick on the most sickly wheels. MY father in law is a hunter and has not cleaned his truck in over a year. He takes it off road and drives about 1500 miles a month. you can only imagine the amount of brake dust that accumulated on his wheels. I used A2Z and followed up with a MEG Wheel brush. Then after the majority of the crap was off the wheel, I came back with Smple Green. After that, the wheel looked amazing. He could not believe the difference. I put a coat of Wheel Glaze on and dressed the tires with Mothers FX Shine.
All in all it took me about an hour to do all four wheels and the results were very dramatic.