Good question, we get this a lot. If they are alloy rims you are safe to use an acidic wheel cleaner to help break up a bulk of the build up. My suggestion would be for Poorboy's Spray & Rinse Wheel Cleaner. This should break up a majority of the brake dust leaving you to get the real embedded stuff off. From there I'd go with P21s Finish Restorer which will take a little bit of elbow grease but should help restore the wheel to a nice luster once again and rid caked on brake dust. If you want to help prevent this from happening again, Poorboy's Wheel Sealant is a great investment to make in the long run to minimize cleaning time as well as reducing the amount of brake dust build up. A similar product people may have heard of is Wheel Wax, however I feel the Poorboy's Wheel Sealant is more durable for an extra dollar.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Sincerely,

George @ Detailed Image

 

I race wheel to wheel. One unfortunate side effect to using brake pads that are nearly metal is that the red hot brake material gets slung out the back and ends up burning holes on the bumper paint and then rusts, resulting in red speckles in the paint. Is there any coating I could apply to the paint to minimize this problem? I realize this is probably more of a bodyshop question, but maybe there is a topical you could recommend?

 

Best recommendation I can suggest to you is to layer a sealant a few coats to help removing the slung brake dust. At least this way it will be sitting on the layers of protection and not the actual paint so when you wash or polish or re-wax it should help in removal. Our most durable sealant, but can be a pain to remove is:

Klasse High Gloss Sealant Glaze

My favorite due to its look, ease of use and surface slickness is:

Menzerna Full Mollecular Jacket

Let me know if you have any other questions.

George @ Detailed Image

 

when I buy my next car, a full detail will be the first mod

 

I washed my car the other day, dried it, and decided to wax the CF hood. When you look at from a stand up position it looks great, but when you look from the side and up close, it appears to have these permanant spots that will not go away w/the waxing. It looks rough and some what cloudy and are very noticeable throughout the surface of the hood. Is there any sure/good way to resolve this?

 

Is the surface swirled? Describe the "spots" that you are seeing a little more in detail for me. You would treat carbon fiber the same as your paint, which means you probably require a polish. Most carbon fiber is gel coated which is very similar to being clear coated so the same processes apply. Another thing to keep in mind, waxes may only hide imperfections they do not remove them. To effectively remove any imperfections or marks on your paint / carbon fiber you will some sort of polish.

George @ Detailed Image

 

I've attached some pictures below, that hopefully show the dull spottedness I am referring to. Can you reccomend a polish? I guess I always thought wax, was a polish...and so I am not familiar w/"polishes." Thanks!!!

 

Sorry for the delay in response centerforce99...

Basically what you are looking at on your CF hood is swirl marks and surface oxidation, both can be cured with a little bit of time and effort. The first thing you'll want to decide on is if you want to apply this by hand or invest in a buffer. A buffer will definitely get you better results, however to invest in a quality buffer, such as the Porter Cable 7424, you would be looking to spend around $170 or so for what you would need to get the job done. The benefits of owning a quality random orbital buffer are: better results, more consistent results, less time and energy on your end, and best of all its paint safe. We joke around by saying the only way you'll damage the paint is if you throw the buffer at your vehicle. We are running a December special on the buffers so if you end up picking it up anytime now thru the end of December it would cost $155 instead of $170 for what you would need which would be:

Porter Cable Starter Kit - $144.99
Orange Light Cutting Pad - $9.99

That's a best case scenario, a great alternative to go by hand would be to look into the Lake Country Hand Applicator Kit. This gives you the proper hand applicator with velcro interchangeable pads, similar to the ones you would use with the Porter Cable, which will allow you to properly adjust the cutting power of the polishes as well as give you even distribution of pressure by hand.

Once you decide on your application method, then you would need some polish. Typically for imperfections that bad, you want to do a 2-step polish, one that is a medium aggressive polish followed by a finishing polish. A great set of polishes that work great by hand or with a buffer are the Poorboy's SSR 2.5 and Poorboy's SSR 1 polishes. First you would start with the 2.5 and get a majority of the imperfections to disappear, then follow up with the SSR 1 to bring back gloss and depth.

To read up a little more about the application process and what the polishes do specifically, read these two articles: Cutting Polish & Finishing Polish

This should definitely give you enough information to make your decision on what to by to fix your car.

If you have any other questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,

George @ Detailed Image

 

It's ok. Well I heard CF hoods are gel coated and so I purchased a gel coat restorer hit w/polish, cloths, pads and sealant. I also purchased a polisher that goes all the way up to 6k rpms. Well, my hood still looks like shit. It lookes like better shit, but those spots are still there. I am now thinking thst my particular hood is not gel coated and that I wasted my money on the kit. Oh well, I guess I can give it to someone w/a boat. I'll keep the polisher since that can come in handy as it is a sander too. However, I think I am in the market for a new/used OEM hood.

 

Hoods can be gel coated or clear coated, it depends on the hood. I would not have suggested buying a rotary buffer. If you aren't skilled with it, you can make things even worse and this is why buffers get such a bad reputation. I would not suggest using it on your paint in the future unless you buy some practice bumpers / hoods / etc. to practice on.

George @ Detailed Image