P21-s Wheel Cleaner

[ausie]

P21-s wheel cleaner has been around for many years. It is hard to find but it works. I first found this stuff at a local garage who worked on the high end vehicles such as ferrari and porsche. It just happened to be next to the car wash (back in 1987). I walked over just to look at the ferrari in the garage. I saw some bottles of p21 in the office and asked the owner about it. I bought a bottle and WOW, it cleanded off break dust like magic. I recently came across the product again at a local high end wheel shop and it works just the same. It is safe for painted or clear coated wheels and will not eat away your brake pads or cause flash rust on the rotors like some of the off the shelf wheel products you find at the local auto-parts stores. This product is manufactured in Germany and has been around for some time. It works really good and was formulated for aluminum wheels. I searched for it shortly after buying the 2001 Cobra since I needed a good wheel cleaner for the polished wheels. If you can find it, give it a try. It will not etch or crack the clear coat. It is almost as good as waxing them. Just spray it on, wipe it with the supplied sponge and wash off and your wheels will shine.

[venomous]

Is it safe on chrome as well??

[ausie]

Originally Posted by venomous

Is it safe on chrome as well??

If it is safe for aluminum it is definately safe for Chrome. More than likely your Chrome wheels are Plated chromium on an Aluminum base metal. Unless it is forged steel with copper nickel chrome plating (which would have higher weight than you would want). There are no strong acids in the P21-S that you find in many of the wheel cleaners. Whenever you clean your wheels they should be cool to start with. My wheels are the BBS RK Plasma which are coated very much the same way the ceramic headers are coated (high metallic content glaze). As for chrome, you could easliy clean them with a weak hydrochloric acid (mother's wire chrome cleaner) but I would not use that product on chrome plated aluminum since the acids would probably react with the intermetallic alloys that are in the metals from the aluminum chroming process. Plated aluminum wheels use a different process than plated steel wheels. Copper plating is used in the chorme plating process prior to the nickel plating and chrome plating. There may be a web site, the company trade signature is called smartparts which is made in Germany. If you have questions, call up a local wheel dealer that specializes in BMW, Porsche, Lexus and the like. They would probably provide you with the correct answers.

[ausie]

I checked to see if there was a web site and there is. www.p21s.com I did check the site to verify it is that of the actual product.

[Firme]

hmm. good timing. I was just washing the car and noticed that I have brake dust speckles all in my clearcoat. I will be trying this stuff if I get a chance.

[ausie]

Originally Posted by Firme

hmm. good timing. I was just washing the car and noticed that I have brake dust speckles all in my clearcoat. I will be trying this stuff if I get a chance.

The stuff will cost about $21.00. Sort of expensive for wheel cleaner, but it does a nice job without damaging any protective coatings on the wheel. I have tried many other products and nothing compares to P21-s.