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Old 07-17-2011
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Jim D. Jim D. is offline
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Location: Huntington Beach, CA
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Cleaning wheels should be done with car wash, and frequently. Use a spray-on, hose-off wheel cleaner when necessary to dissolve baked-on brake dust.

For polishing, I recommend Mothers Chrome Polish -- it's completely safe for chrome plate.




Despite what some may think, chrome really can't be polished in the usual sense like you polish paint or bare aluminum -- chrome is a permanent finish and using very fine polishes you can clean and brighten, and in the case with Mothers, it also protects.

Many multi-surface metal polish products, including Peek, are not all that safe. Even Peek's website says "Plated metals must be gently wiped with a very soft cloth; use very little pressure; hard rubbing will remove plating" -- this is absolutely true -- so be careful.

See, compounds that clean and polish bare metals including aluminum are in actuality too harsh for chrome, and compounds that clean and polish chrome really don't work that well on aluminum -- it's not an optimal situation to combine these two types of polishing duties. But when you run the risk of damaging that chrome plate, why risk it?

In fact I did a test recently with two brand-name multi-surface products that are available at major auto parts stores and discovered just how very easy it is to scratch chrome. And the problem with scratching chrome is that you simply can't remove those scratches -- you have to re-plate.
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