Advice on making these wheels nice and shiny :)

T

tommyortom

New member
these are the factory wheels on my dads 88 fiero. he only drives it in the summer when its dry out, so they are in good shape, but they havent been cleaned for at least a year. i dont know why he doesnt clean his car....but hes going out of town and i have several days to work on it.



since ive never really "detailed" wheels since my car has 15" hubcaps that i just do a regular wash on, this will be my first tedious wheel job.



1st of all..i will need to buy product available at local stores since i only have several days to finish it.



so what would you recommend for these? the aluminum ring around the outside of them needs some polishing work...but my dad said he will do that himself..so im just going to clean them as best as i can. what about the black spokes and all those little holes? what would you recommend? i plan on just claying them...cleaning every square in with a brush, then waxing them.



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First clean the wheel with something like Eagle One wheel cleaner. Then for the aluminum you can get Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish and for the painted part I would recommend a good chemical cleaner or maybe Meguiar's scratchx.
 
getting in the areas where the spokes dont go through the wheel...and around the lugnuts is going to be really fun...
 
im not going to make another thread...but on the same car..there are plastic and metal trim pieces that look kinda crappy and dull. is it ok to clay them and polish or wax plastic and the metal trim? i will be doing everything by hand or i may use one of those crappy buffers with a terry cloth bonnet since i dont have a rotary or pc.

i will be using optimum polish and meguiars nxt paste wax.



these black parts are plastic:

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these black parts are metal:

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For the black plastic, Mother's Back to Black is a good off-the-shelf product. Apply using a sponge.



The metal trim (could be chromed plastic!) I would use something mild such as Autosol or Meg's NXT All Metal Polish. Don't use the terry cloth buffer on it. I've used terry cloth by hand and it can scratch chromed plastic.
 
so can i clay over everything safely? like the aluminum lip and the black plastic trim? i read somewhere that you shouldnt clay over plastic because it removes something...
 
poor wheels :(....

they are the oem wheels from an 88 fiero, so they may need to be redone. they havent seen road salt from Michigan winters.....but i think they are just old. there are a few spots on the black where the clear coat is rubbing through..and most of the aluminum lip need the clearcoat stripped, aluminum polished, and re-clear coated. so there isnt much i can do with them now but clean them up.
 
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