Re: OIl Stained Aluminum Wheels
We live near the Eagle Shale formation located between San Antonio and Corpus Christi TX. They are constantly burning off natural gas. The DW has to travel through there on her way to Corpus on business. Once she called and told me that our white Mercury was covered with black oily soot. It had been raining so the soot was in the water droplets, and the stuff was all over the car. I told her to run it through a carwash and everything would be alright. She called back and said that the car wash cleaned it a little bit but the gooey stuff was still on there and there was a lot of it. She came home the next day and I saw it for the first time. I tried everything, some things worked better than others but nothing worked well.
Looking all over I found two cans of Sprayway cleaner. One is for windows and is an excellent product. The other Sprayway product is stainless steel oil based cleaner. Its about a 16 oz aerosol and can be found at walmart.
I sprayed the whole car with it then I started wiping the car from the same spot I started from. The black junk started coming off instead of smearing everywhere. Once I got all that black stuff off the stainless steel cleaner left an oily film, but a second treatment with the Sprayway glass cleaner removed that. The car was clean as a whistle. The Sprayway product is available at Walmart and does not cost much. If it works for you It will be worth the 3 bucks. I dont know what kind of wheels you have but do not scrub the aluminum wheels as you will create micro scratches and you will never get it off. Get a can of each the glass cleaner and the stainless steel appliance cleaner. It might work for you. BTW it did not affect my clearcoat.
Two days ago I got caught in a stretch of road that had a mixture of fresh oil from resurfacing and a heavy rain. By the time I got home and pulled into the garage the truck was coated and dripping with a water/oil mixture. Even though it was still pouring I immediately went to a car wash and tried to clean it up. The body came out with only a bit of film on it which I suspect will come out completely at a detail shop. The wheels are a different matter. All four wheels are coated with a disgusting coat of oil. It looks like they have been spray painted with dirty brown paint. Nothing I have tried will even touch it. I've tried a good wheel cleaner and even a tar remover. I brought it over to a detail shop and after shaking his head and telling me that I should sue the city, he says he thinks they can get it clean. I'm hopeful but not optimistic. Has anyone out there run into a similar situation? Is there a product that you've used successfully on this? I was totally disgusted because I entered this stretch of road from the west and there were no wet oil signs. Anyone entering this road from the east had ample warning. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
