We have all been guilty at some time of neglecting our cars for long stretches of time, only to get the sudden urge to give it a clean and polish and be horrified by the amount of elbow grease required. The best way to keep on top of the state of your car is to do it often. Leaving the bodywork and alloys without due care and attention leads to difficulty in polishing later and sometimes complete disrepair.

The best time to start is right at the beginning - when you apply a good coating of polish on either side of the wheels before you have them fitted to our car. This will prevent the dirt and dust from the road ‘keying’ to the surface and causing permanent damage and dulling. You can get your alloy wheels fitted at Topgear to ensure they get the best care right from the start.

After a week or so, depending on how much usage and dirt your car sees, you’ll want to first hose off all the loose dirt and grit from the wheels (the last thing you want to do is polish them into the metal, scratching the surface) and give them a wash with mild soapy warm water. Despite the avilability of many cleaners on the market, this is the best way to keep the wheels clean and undamaged. Never use wool pads or buffers, you’ll scar the alloy.

A good polish is the next step, and is particularly important if you have diamond rims.

Overall, giving your alloy wheels regular measures of attention is going to give you the best value for money and save you a lot of effort. If your alloys have seen their last road-trip and it’s time to get a new set, head over to our online store alloy wheel pages to choose some new alloys.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 at 11:00 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.