Desertnate
Active member
Duplicate of review posted below, PoorBoy’s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner.
Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner
- Thread starter Desertnate
- Start date
Desertnate
Active member
New Year`s day in my area turned out to be sunny and unseasonably warm so I did what any self-respecting car and detailing enthusiast would do: I washed my car. Since my car`s last wash it has seen two snow storms and multiple days of rain. Needless to say, the car was really dirty and my wheels were even worse. This provided me a great opportunity to do a product review of the wheel cleaner I`m currently using: Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner.
Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner is a really long name for a simple, easy to use product available in the gallon jug shown here or 16oz bottles. I highly recommend buying the gallon jugs of any wheel cleaner. Not only does it lower the per-volume prices, but a single 16oz bottle of product will only be good for cleaning around 8 wheels, maybe less if they are very large or really dirty. Having a gallon jug on hand also significantly lowers the possibility of running out of product in the middle of a wash, or finding yourself ready to wash your car and finding an empty bottle in your garage. Ask me how I know.
Going into this job, my wheels were in pretty rough shape. Two months of brake dust, road salt, and general grime from driving in winter weather left them pretty dirty.
To get a real appreciation for how dirty the wheel really is, here is a close up of the caked on brake dust and grime.
To save time and wheel cleaner the wheels were first sprayed down with my power washer. I don`t use the power washer all the time, but when the car or wheels are this dirty, it really speeds up the washing process by knocking off quite a bit of loose grime. If you don`t own one and the vehicle is really in rough shape, I recommend going to a coin-op car wash and giving the whole thing the best rinse you can get for a dollar or two. Here is the same wheel after simply giving it a good blast with my small power washer.
Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner sprays on thick and has this alien guts green color. For wheels like these with a simple design, I can clean them pretty rapidly and the holding ability of the product isn`t as important. The summer wheels on my previous car had twice as many spokes which made a thicker wheel cleaner like this one very helpful. The wheel cleaner remained on all the surfaces despite the longer time needed to clean between all the spokes.
With the wheel cleaner applied to the working area the next step was to give them a good scrubbing first with my Speedmaster wheel brush to clean the barrel of the wheels, tight areas around the brake calipers, and the smaller areas between spokes. The larger areas and the face of the wheel is cleaned with a soft wheel brush. With this step complete, the wheel cleaner has created lots of suds which still cling to the wheel. In the image below the dark suds on the brake rotor and wheel show how much grime is being removed.
For the purposes of this review I only cleaned half of the wheel at a time. In the bottom left of the above picture and the left side of the picture below you can see the stark difference in color and gloss of the clean side verses the dirty side.
After getting a few good pictures, I cleaned the left side in the same way. The final result is a shiny, glossy, wheel free of brake dust and grime.
Like all the other Poorboy`s World products I use, their Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner is a great product which works well. It doesn`t seem overly harsh, clings to surfaces, cleans well, and rinses off easily. The only negative for this product is the price; gallon jugs are priced at $50. Griot`s Garage Wheel Cleaner which is also a very good product, but thinner in consistency can be found in multiple places $35 a gallon.
If you need a wheel cleaner with some staying power on the surface, Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner is the way to go. However, if staying power on the surface isn`t an issue, I`d go Griot`s Garage and save some money.
Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner is a really long name for a simple, easy to use product available in the gallon jug shown here or 16oz bottles. I highly recommend buying the gallon jugs of any wheel cleaner. Not only does it lower the per-volume prices, but a single 16oz bottle of product will only be good for cleaning around 8 wheels, maybe less if they are very large or really dirty. Having a gallon jug on hand also significantly lowers the possibility of running out of product in the middle of a wash, or finding yourself ready to wash your car and finding an empty bottle in your garage. Ask me how I know.
Going into this job, my wheels were in pretty rough shape. Two months of brake dust, road salt, and general grime from driving in winter weather left them pretty dirty.
To get a real appreciation for how dirty the wheel really is, here is a close up of the caked on brake dust and grime.
To save time and wheel cleaner the wheels were first sprayed down with my power washer. I don`t use the power washer all the time, but when the car or wheels are this dirty, it really speeds up the washing process by knocking off quite a bit of loose grime. If you don`t own one and the vehicle is really in rough shape, I recommend going to a coin-op car wash and giving the whole thing the best rinse you can get for a dollar or two. Here is the same wheel after simply giving it a good blast with my small power washer.
Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner sprays on thick and has this alien guts green color. For wheels like these with a simple design, I can clean them pretty rapidly and the holding ability of the product isn`t as important. The summer wheels on my previous car had twice as many spokes which made a thicker wheel cleaner like this one very helpful. The wheel cleaner remained on all the surfaces despite the longer time needed to clean between all the spokes.
With the wheel cleaner applied to the working area the next step was to give them a good scrubbing first with my Speedmaster wheel brush to clean the barrel of the wheels, tight areas around the brake calipers, and the smaller areas between spokes. The larger areas and the face of the wheel is cleaned with a soft wheel brush. With this step complete, the wheel cleaner has created lots of suds which still cling to the wheel. In the image below the dark suds on the brake rotor and wheel show how much grime is being removed.
For the purposes of this review I only cleaned half of the wheel at a time. In the bottom left of the above picture and the left side of the picture below you can see the stark difference in color and gloss of the clean side verses the dirty side.
After getting a few good pictures, I cleaned the left side in the same way. The final result is a shiny, glossy, wheel free of brake dust and grime.
Like all the other Poorboy`s World products I use, their Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner is a great product which works well. It doesn`t seem overly harsh, clings to surfaces, cleans well, and rinses off easily. The only negative for this product is the price; gallon jugs are priced at $50. Griot`s Garage Wheel Cleaner which is also a very good product, but thinner in consistency can be found in multiple places $35 a gallon.
If you need a wheel cleaner with some staying power on the surface, Poorboy`s World Non-Acid Wheel Cleaner is the way to go. However, if staying power on the surface isn`t an issue, I`d go Griot`s Garage and save some money.
Coatings=crack
Active member
Good review. Looks like a goid product. I meed to give poorboys a try
You should remove the link for the wheel face brush tho... links to the Big A a no no also
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You should remove the link for the wheel face brush tho... links to the Big A a no no also
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Desertnate
Active member
Agh! Yep. That was an oversight on my part while doing all the copy/paste work. Thanks!
Astouffer512
Member
Not to belabor in this but since both Autopia and AG ship from the PBMG warehouse what is the concern with copying there links in? Are the 2 forums and websites entirely separate entities, no relationship at all?
Again, I don’t really care...just wondering
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Again, I don’t really care...just wondering
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Coatings=crack
Active member
I think thats ok, links to AG and Autopia sites. Its links to the outside of those 2. One of his links was to Amazon. On Autopia you can post and talk about non PBMG products but not link. The dont provide these forums for us to send business elsewhere.
You can even review non PBMG products here just cant link them. Most forums wont even let yiu do that including Autogeeks.
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You can even review non PBMG products here just cant link them. Most forums wont even let yiu do that including Autogeeks.
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Desertnate
Active member
I committed two fouls with this review. First, I simply posted a link to the review on my personal blog. Didn`t really think about it being an issue, but I`ve not read the TOU`s in a while. The second was forgetting about a link to Amazon embedded in the text. I knew that one and simply missed it.
Both are my fault and I`ll proceed differently the next time around to stay within the rules set out by our hosts.
Both are my fault and I`ll proceed differently the next time around to stay within the rules set out by our hosts.
GearHead_1
Long Time Member
Links to AutoGeek and Autopia are both most appropriate.
Accumulator
Well-known member
While I hardly ever use Wheel Cleaners, I checked out this review (good job, Desertnate!) since I`ve used up all my old TOL Non-Acidic stuff.
I guess I`m just wasting bandwidth, but heh heh... *gee* you considered those wheels really dirty?!? I`d simply love it if ours only got that bad between washes.
I`m guessing that those little holes between the lugs call for swabs, huh? I`m wondering why they`re there...other than that, those look like they`d be pretty OK to clean; getting the backs of the spokes looks like it`d be easy.
I guess I`m just wasting bandwidth, but heh heh... *gee* you considered those wheels really dirty?!? I`d simply love it if ours only got that bad between washes.
I`m guessing that those little holes between the lugs call for swabs, huh? I`m wondering why they`re there...other than that, those look like they`d be pretty OK to clean; getting the backs of the spokes looks like it`d be easy.
Desertnate
Active member
In bright sunlight it looked much worse. Those wheels are also gray and not a bright silver, so they don`t look as bad when really dirty. All part of the plan for my winter wheels!
One thing I noticed was even though they didn`t look *that* bad and the power washer knocked of a substantial amount of the brake dust and grime, I still had some very tiny black spots which were REALLY hard to remove. If I`d gone much longer there is no telling if the problem would have grown.
Yes, those holes do need swabs. No idea what they are there for since they don`t go all the way to the back side of the wheel.
Besides those silly little holes, the wheels are very easy to clean. I can get anywhere on them with a Speedmaster brush and a regular wheel brush for the front facing areas. Again, part of the plan since these are my winter wheels and I knew they would get much dirtier than my summer wheels and I needed the ability to clean them quickly and easily.
Accumulator
Well-known member
Desertnate- With those spots being so tenacious it probably *was* a good idea to not let them go longer. Another case of my not being able to really see what`s what via internet pix 
Desertnate
Active member
They were pretty tiny but plentiful enough they caught my attention when taking a very close look at the wheel. I didn`t even see them until doing a final "QC" check after I`d taken all the pictures. I could have let them go, but was afraid they would eventually cause pitting in the finish of the wheel.
Accumulator
Well-known member
Desertnate- Do you have any kind of protection on them? I`m guessing "no" since you`re using a Wheel Cleaner..and if that`s the case I understand about not wanting to risk pitting. (The only wheels I run bare are already imperfect enough that I probably (?) wouldn`t care.)
Astouffer512
Member
Accumulater
So, is it standard practice e to not use any sort of wheel cleaner on wheels that you have any sort of protection on?
Asking because I have been consider coating or sealing the wheels on our fusion and still continuing to use PS brake baker during my wheel cleaning wash
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So, is it standard practice e to not use any sort of wheel cleaner on wheels that you have any sort of protection on?
Asking because I have been consider coating or sealing the wheels on our fusion and still continuing to use PS brake baker during my wheel cleaning wash
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Accumulator
Well-known member
Astouffer512- With some kind of LSP/Coating on them, it shouldn`t be necessary to use a real Wheel Cleaner except for redos. Even just a coat of wax will often be enough to let you clean them with just a strong shampoo mix, although of course YMMV in all sorts of ways (yep, that`s a universal disclaimer ).
I still touch-wash them though, and I gather some people want to do a touchLESS wheel wash; that`d call for Wheel Cleaners that`d clean off the LSP along with the dirt, but *IM limited E* it`s an OK approach for Coated wheels (not that it`s usually necessary).
). I still touch-wash them though, and I gather some people want to do a touchLESS wheel wash; that`d call for Wheel Cleaners that`d clean off the LSP along with the dirt, but *IM limited E* it`s an OK approach for Coated wheels (not that it`s usually necessary).
Desertnate
Active member
The wheels are coated with CQuartz UK 3.0. I`ve found with the coating the wheels stay cleaner a bit longer and are far easier to clean.
I`ve not noticed the wheel cleaners having any negative effect on the coating (I`ve done another set of wheel in the past too) and the wheel cleaners also seem to clean better and faster than a normal car wash solution; especially on the barrels. The less time I spend with the brushes the better for me. With this BMW and the OEM performance brake pads, I`m cleaning them more often than I`d like already.
Astouffer512
Member
Astouffer512- With some kind of LSP/Coating on them, it shouldn`t be necessary to use a real Wheel Cleaner except for redos. Even just a coat of wax will often be enough to let you clean them with just a strong shampoo mix, although of course YMMV in all sorts of ways (yep, that`s a universal disclaimer
I still touch-wash them though, and I gather some people want to do a touchLESS wheel wash; that`d call for Wheel Cleaners that`d clean off the LSP along with the dirt, but *IM limited E* it`s an OK approach for Coated wheels (not that it`s usually necessary).
Ahh ok, makes sense. I like to touch-wash my wheels as well. By now I have enough mitts / wash pads that I can all but get around the vehicle with not having to worry too much about using a filthy mitt on another area of the cars. I normally throw all my mitts in the wash bucket and just toss my dirty into a bucket and rinse them out when I am finished.
My wife accused me over Christmas of being ridiculous....can you believe that?
She says, you went from a guy who never washes my car to being borderline crazy about it
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Accumulator
Well-known member
Ah, OK..yeah, I`ve used Wheel Cleaners on coated wheels when they were nasty and the coating seemed to hold up fine.
Bill D
Hooked For Life
You’re not ridiculous until you start washing cars the way Accumulator and I do