Wheel Cleaner Test: StjärnaGloss Hjul pH Neutral Wheel Cleaner 473ml – £7.95 / 3.78 litres – £24.95

StjärnaGloss are a fairly new car care company, but one that has made their entrance with some truly outstanding products. This wheel cleaner gel is one of those and doesn’t disappoint. It is aimed more at regularly cared for wheels, rather than those that have months of dirt and grime embedded into them. It is completely Acid and Alkali free which means that it can be used on any type of wheel or rim. Chrome, painted, alloy and carbon fibre – all okay.

But if it’s free from those more toxic products and can clean any type of wheel, it must be a weakling right? Nope. In fact, it’s the opposite. A month’s worth of brake dust is no problem at all to it and, as it can be diluted to your needs, you will save money if you’re just using it on wheels that are lightly dirty. It is a thick and sticky product when neat, and in that form can actually be painted straight onto your wheels if they are really dirty. With it being a gel, once you spray it onto your wheels, it sticks there rather than running off, as normal cleaners do, which in turn helps it to work its way deep into the grime.

We tried it at a 1:5 and 1:15 dilution rates on dirty and lightly soiled wheels, and it performed excellently. It smells of Piña Colada too which makes cleaning that little bit more enjoyable.

9/10 A superb and extremely safe wheel cleaner which is more suited to regularly maintained wheels. Can be used on any type of rim.

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Wheel Cleaner Test: Turbo Wax Wheel Cleaner 4oz (118ml) – $8.99 / 16oz (473ml) – $15.99

After testing this wheel cleaner on rims in various stages of filthiness, we came to the conclusion that for a ‘non-acidic & safe’ wheel cleaner, this product works very well on deep grime.

The range and type of wheel it can be used on is good and even includes being able to use it on clear coat and tyres too. We used it to remove very thick industrial tyre shine from a set of tyres along with a stiff scrubbing brush. It worked brilliantly and got rid of all of the nasty gloopy tyre shine and left the natural finish behind.

On one particular set of rims, there were several large pieces of road tar stuck on, and the Turbo Wax shifted them with no trouble at all. The finish left behind is bright and shiny. The instructions are to spray the Wheel Cleaner on, leave it to dwell for one minute and then agitate with a wheel brush. After the one minute dwelling time, we found that it had dried slightly too much to agitate properly, but another quick spray of the stuff gives enough to work with.

9/10 A very good wheel cleaner which is safe for any type of wheel and tyre. Cleans deeply and brightens well.

Turbo Wax are currently looking for a U.K distributor of their products. If you are interested, contact them through their website.

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Turbo Wax Wheel Cleaner - Before

Turbo Wax Wheel Cleaner - After

Wheel Cleaner Test: CarPlan Wonder Wheels Universal Wheel Cleaner  500 ml – £7.99

CarPlan has manufactured this product so that it’s safe for all types of wheels. This means that you guys out there with the split rims, polished or chrome alloys etc can use it safely in the knowledge that it won’t damage your Dubs. We found that even baked-on brake dust and winter grime was still shifted fairly easily. CarPlan’s other Wonder Wheels product is quite a bit stronger and shifted deeply ingrained dirt better, but this is slightly more advantageous all-round product.

The ‘U’ comes in either a spray bottle or a tub, but both include a soft and fairly good quality wheel brush too, which is a bit of a bonus. To use, apply the Wonder Wheels ‘U’ to your alloys, leave for up to 1 minute to soak and then use the brush to push product in deeper into the grime. After that – rinse off well and maybe use a sponge or wash mitt and some shampoo to finish it off.

8/10 A good and ‘safe’ all-round wheel cleaner which shifts baked on grime well.

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Wheel Cleaner Test: Muc-Off Biodegradable Wheel Cleaner  1 litre – £6.99 / 5 litres – £20.00

A good product overall, this wheel cleaner is very well priced compared to the competition. It performed well in removing built-up brake dust and road grime. This wheel cleaner can be used on any type of wheels, so whatever you’ve got, even it’s chrome or split rims, it’s all good. It’s also kind to the environment as it’s biodegradable.

The trigger spray action was very positive and it gave a good spread as you sprayed it. It sounds a bit geeky, but as a test site we come across many trigger heads that leak, block up, break and don’t give a good spray pattern, so to have a good quality one is a big plus.

Another plus is that it won’t remove any tyre shine you have on either. It didn’t want to remove ingrained dirt in wheels though, so you’ll need an acidic cleaner for that, but, if your wheels are in fairly good condition and maintained fairly regularly, this is a great product to add to your car care collection.

8/10 Outstanding price and a good safe wheel cleaner. Well worth buying.

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We got impressive results from this car care product. It’s fine for nearly all rim types apart from Chrome wheels. It works itself into the grime on the wheel almost instantly. It has the added bonus of being able to clean more types of wheels. The only drawback we found was that the spray was a bit widespread and too light, so that even a light breeze blew it all over the place.

You can also buy a Cleaner and Protector Kit for around £7 more which includes a brush and a protector spray for post-wash application which is probably the one to go for price-wise.

8/10 Slightly more expensive than other makes, but will clean a larger variety of wheels.

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Mer Alloy & Steel Wheel Cleaner 500 ml – £6.48

We liked this wheel cleaner for both the price and the effectiveness. After spraying it onto the wheel, we used a soft bristle brush to work the cleaner into the grime, and then, as per instructions, left it for between 2 and 3 minutes to soak in. We felt that even on some of the worst caked on brake dust that only 2 minutes was needed though. It worked well and cleaned off all the dust and grime with not much effort at all.

It doesn’t come with a soft brush but it works as well as some as the others here and is well priced too. It can also be used on wheel trims and steel wheels. The only drawback is that, as with some of the other manufacturers, it can’t be used on certain types of wheels (highly polished, anodised stainless steel etc). Car care essential? It’s a big maybe.

8/10 Tackles tough brake dust and grime well and is priced competitively.

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Wheel Cleaner Test: CarPlan EcoCar Wheel Cleaner 500 ml – £4.50

A pump-action spray. This is an Eco-Friendly wheel cleaner, in other words it doesn’t damage the environment. It ‘contains natural alcohols derived from sugar beet or maize with powerful natural detergents and naturally derived biodegradable surfactants and extracts of lime.’ Naturally (no pun intended), we thought that it may struggle to do as good a job as the others as it’s a non-acidic cleaner.

Cleaning your alloy wheels is an essential part of car care, so we need to know just how good these cleaners work in ‘real life’ situations. It worked very well though actually, and we were happy with the results. It worked its way right through baked on brake dust and thick road grime. If the metal or paint of a wheel is ingrained with dirt though, it wont shift it, but then again, neither will most acidic cleaners.

If your wheels are in okay condition and you want to use a cleaner kind to the environment, then this is a very good option, plus it can be used on most types of wheels including chromed alloys. Some slight drawbacks were that the product dried out on the wheels very quickly on warmer days and you can get through a bottle fairly quickly as quite a bit needed to soak a wheel.

8/10 A good wheel cleaner which is friendly to the environment and kind to your wallet.

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As usual we tested this wheel cleaner on some extremely filthy wheels. It worked very well, cutting straight through the baked-on brake dust and ‘motorway-miles’ grime. It did it quickly and almost instantly, as there’s no ‘contact time’ needed ,and it was easy to use thanks to the soft bristle brush the spray bottle comes with.

Although it’s a ‘10 time winner‘ and ‘best buy‘ product from another test site, our gripe is with the fact that it can’t be used with quite a few other type of wheels such as polished/chrome/anodised etc, and there are other cleaners out there that will clean all types of rims just as well and for around the same price too.

8/10 Works well, and the price is good as you also get a soft brush with it but is, again, limited to only a few types of wheels.

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Wheel Cleaner Test: Autoglym Clean Wheels – 500 ml  £5.99 / $9.99

Using this on extremely dirty alloys that were coated in a thick layer of brake dust and grime, it worked well, cleaning the wheels very deeply. Cleaning alloy wheels is a particularly important part of car care and this is, however, an acidic wheel cleaner, and so can only be used on lacquered alloy, painted or plastic finishes, so it’s no good for highly polished alloy, chrome, stainless steel or split rims.

Using it again ,we found that it also cleaned off tyre dressing in the areas that it had ran onto the tyres surface and it also got rid of the Rimwax that had been previously applied too. Not so good on those points then. As an occasional user it is good, as it will remove stubborn brake dust and ingrained dirt, but we wouldn’t use it on a regular wash basis purely because it also removes any tyre dressing or wheel wax you happen to have already applied.

7/10 Works well, but is recommended more for occasional use and is limited to certain wheel types.

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ValetPRO

Wheel Cleaner Test: ValetPRO Bilberry Wheel Cleaner 1 litre – £9.50 / 5 litres – £21

The Valet PRO Bilberry Wheel Cleaner has quite a following amongst car detailers, valeters and car cleaning enthusiasts. Go on most detailing forums and it is widely talked about as being one of the best and easiest-to-use wheel cleaners around. Talking to a variety of users of VP’s Bilberry, we found that the wheel cleaner was just one of those ‘must have’s’ in your product collection.

So, how does it stack up? Let’s find out!

To use this product simply dilute it yourself to your own need and buy yourself a spray bottle (D.I.Y centres will sell you one for around £3). For heavily soiled wheels you can use it neat or dilute it 1 to 1 part water, or for lightly soiled wheels,1 to 5 parts water. Initially, we were actually quite sceptical that this Bilberry wheel cleaner would work properly, as it’s acid free, but those thoughts were vanquished pretty darn quickly once we’d got on with testing it.

The wheels we used it on were extremely dirty, having left them for weeks without a clean. They were covered thickly in brake dust and mud. However, we used the ValetPro product 1 to 5 parts water, instead of neat, just to test how good it was. After spraying on the Bilberry and leaving it to soak for a couple of minutes, we then used a wheel brush to agitate the product and get it worked into the dirt. At the same time we cleaned the tyres too.

The results? ‘Good’, is a complete and utter understatement. The word for this stuff is ‘amazing’. Clean and shiny wheels within only a couple of minutes, and no streaks left behind (and we also used it in direct, hot sunlight too). The tyres also cleaned up nicely, with most of the dirt coming right out.

We’ve been using this product from Valet PRO for over 2 years now, and if there was ever a name synonymous with Valet PRO, it is most definitely Bilberry Wheel Cleaner. This is one of the best wheel cleaners we have ever used, bar none, and it fully lives up to the hype.

10/10 Huge value for money, and the most exceptional, effective and ‘safe’ wheel cleaner we’ve ever come across.

Visit Valet PRO’s website and also their Valet PRO Bilberry Wheel Cleaner site

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