You have to keep alloy wheels clean a little and often, once brake dust embeds itself it takes serious chemicals to shift it, an alternative to the aggressive TFR type wheel cleaners is Bilt Hamber Auto Wheel, this stuff you spray (difficult its thick stuff) or apply with a paint brush, which lifts the problem dirt and changes colour to a deep purple when the reaction is complete, invariably just applying the stuff with a soft paintbrush is agitation enough unless its been months baking on...note do not do this on a really hot day as you do not want this stuff to dry on.

I use this BH AW about every three months, and otherwise a good general wash every other week keeps everything tickety boo.

If you wax the wheels well before winter this helps dirt not to stick.

Yes some wheel designs are awkward to clean, but the ones that need most careful care are the diamond cut and laquered wheel designs, these i recommend using the above method and to avoid TFR and the typical car washes like the plague, if you want to get these wheel types refurbed to OE standard you are looking at £80/100 a wheel.

The trouble with steel wheels and trims is that they are made to look grim to get people upspeccing, i think it was Vauxhall a few years ago that came up with some superb wheel trims that fitted the wide gapped steel wheel perfectly and were often mistaken for alloys.

Those Rostyle steel wheels of a few years ago were good, looked really smart, as did the plain steel wheels on big bumper 144GLE Volvos which basically had a push fit stainless trim around the outer wheel well and another smaller trim covering the wheelnuts, looked much better than it sounds.

I'm sure i saw some plastic covers advertised a few years back, which slotted between the wheel and hub, which protected the discs from outside muck and the wheel from brake dust, don't know about the effect on cooling (they'd melt if used hard i suspect) but no one else would be able to see your powder coated sporty red/yellow/purple brake calipers nor see the drillings in your overpriced disc rotors nor be envious of the BREMBO letter painted on those massive caliper covers :-)

Edited by gordonbennet on 16/12/2018 at 13:59

Oh yes. I've been known to put the wheel trims in the dishwasher, but don't tell the missus.

I've been known to drive around without wheel trims so they remained in good condition for when I sold the car.

My current Yaris came with alloy wheels, the only model with steel wheels was the 1.0 litre engine and I didn't want that.

Whilst I found the steel wheels much easier to clean on my old (mid 90s) Micra, the plastic wheel covers were certainly not (on the side facing inwards), and the more I did take them off to clean them, they looser they became when refitting back on the hub.

It is true that bigger alloys can be easier to fully clean than smaller ones that just fit over the brakes, but it's a trade-off to the better ride and lower suscetibility to damage they and the matching higher profile tyres have, as well as the replacement costs.

As GB says, cleaning them at reasonable intervals is best, and to avoid high pressure jet washing which will strip the lacquer. I like using the 'special' fake badger brush that you can get with the strong Auto Glym alloy wheel cleaner, but again I agree that you have to be very careful to not leave that stuff to dry as it will eventually strip the lacquer off the wheels. An old toothbrush is also a worthwhile tool to get into all those knooks and crannies, even if using it is a bit time-consuming.

Had a couple of Aurises - one with steel wheels and one with alloys - and found the former were 5-6% better for fuel economy, probably because of the tyres